See the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars.
Star-shadows shine, love,
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul,
Only mine, love, mine?
When I move the oars, love,
See how the stars are tossed,
Distorted, the brightest lost.
--So that bright one of yours, love.
The poor waters spill
The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
--The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
Its stars stand still.
The acrid scents of autumn,
Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear
Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn
And the snore of the night in my ear.
For suddenly, flush-fallen,
All my life, in a rush
Of shedding away, has left me
Naked, exposed on the bush.
I, on the bush of the globe,
Like a newly-naked berry, shrink
Disclosed: but I also am prowling
As well in the scents that slink
Abroad: I in this naked berry
Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush;
And I in the stealthy, brindled odours
Prowling about the lush
The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind
as it mutters
Something which sets the black poplars ashake with
hysterical laughter;
While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern
shutters.
Further down the valley the clustered tombstones
recede,
Winding about their dimness the mist's grey
cerements, after
The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly
started to bleed.
The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as
they pass
To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with
two dark-filled eyes
The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
The crisping steam of a train
Melts in the air, while two black birds
Sweep past the window again.
Along the vacant road, a red
Bicycle approaches; I wait
In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
To leap down at our gate.
He has passed us by; but is it
Relief that starts in my breast?
Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
She has no rest.
A WIND comes from the north
Blowing little flocks of birds
Like spray across the town,
And a train, roaring forth,
Rushes stampeding down
With cries and flying curds
Of steam, out of the darkening north.
Whither I turn and set
Like a needle steadfastly,
Waiting ever to get
The news that she is free;
But ever fixed, as yet,
To the lode of her agony.
I will not reason, wrestle here with you,
Though you pursue and worry me about;
As well put forth my swarthy arm to stop
The wild wind howling, darkly mad without.
The night is yours for revels; day will light.
I will not fight you, bold and tigerish,
For I am weak, while you are gaining strength;
Peace! cease tormenting me to have your wish.
But when you’re filled and sated with the flesh,
I shall go swiftly to the silver stream,
To cleanse my body for the spirit’s sake,
And sun my limbs, and close my eyes to dream.
Child of the Aztec gods, how long must we listen here, how long before we go?
The dust is deep on the lintels.
The dust is dark on the doors.
If the dreams shake our bones, what can we say or do?
Since early morning we waited.
Since early, early morning, child.
There must be dreams on the way now.
There must be a song for our bones.
The dust gets deeper and darker.
Do the doors and lintels shudder?
How long must we listen here?
How long before we go?
For the second time in a year this lady with the white
hands is brought to the west room second floor
of a famous sanatorium.
Her husband is a cornice manufacturer in an Iowa
town and the lady has often read papers on Victorian
poets before the local literary club.
Yesterday she washed her hands forty seven times
during her waking hours and in her sleep moaned
restlessly attempting to clean imaginary soiled
spots off her hands.
Now the head physician touches his chin with a
crooked forefinger.
I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips
And she formed his name on her tongue and sang
And she sent him word she loved him so much,
So much, and death was nothing ; work, art, home,
All was nothing if her love for him was not first
Of all ; the patter of her lips ran, I love him,
I love him ; and he knew the doors that opened
Into doors and more doors, no end of doors,
And full length mirrors doubling and tripling
The apparitions of doors : circling corridors of
Looking glasses and doors, some with knobs, some
With no knobs, some opening slow to a heavy push,
And some jumping open at a touch and a hello.
And he knew if he so wished he could follow her
When the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks
of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of
lawyers and cool decisions of the judge,
There are points of high silence — twiddling of thumbs
is at an end — bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews
of tobacco and wait — and the clock has a chance for
its ticking to be heard.
A lawyer for the defense clears his throat and holds
himself ready if the word is " Guilty " to enter motion
for a new trial, speaking in a soft voice, speaking
in a voice slightly colored with bitter wrongs
mingled with monumental patience, speaking with
mythic Atlas shoulders of many preposterous, unjust
circumstances.
Have I told any man to be a liar for my sake?
Have I sold ice to the poor in summer and coal to the
poor in winter for the sake of daughters who nursed
brindle bull terriers and led with a leash their dogs
clothed in plaid wool jackets?
Have I given any man an earful too much of my talk —
or asked any man to take a snootful of booze on
my account?
Have I put wool in my own ears when men tried to tell
me what was good for me? Have I been a bum
listener ?
Have I taken dollars from the living and the unborn
while I made speeches on the retributions that
shadow the heels of the dishonest?
Have I done any good under cover? Or have I always
put it in the show windows and the newspapers ?
For a woman's face remembered as a spot of quick light
on the flat land of dark night,
For this memory of one mouth and a forehead they go
on in the gray rain and the mud, they go on among
the boots and guns.
The horizon ahead is a thousand fang flashes, it is a row
of teeth that bite on the flanks of night, the horizon
sings of a new kill and a big kill.
The horizon behind is a wall of dark etched with a
memory, fixed with a woman's face — they fight on
and on, boots in the mud and heads in the gray
rain — for the women they hate and the women they
love — for the women they left behind, they fight on.