In me is a little painted square
Bordered by old shops, with gaudy awnings.
And before the shops sit smoking, open-bloused old men,
Drinking sunlight.
The old men are my thoughts:
And I come to them each evening, in a creaking cart,
And quietly unload supplies.
We fill slim pipes and chat,
And inhale scents from pale flowers in the center of the square....
Strong men, tinkling women, and dripping, squealing children
Stroll past us, or into the shops.
They greet the shopkeepers, and touch their hats or foreheads to me....
Some evening I shall not return to my people.
Pain is a country cousin of yours.
He flings buds of awakening desires
Upon the stately weddings in your heart,
And laughs.
You must teach him better manners;
Bind his mouth with pale sleep;
Caress him with trailing hands
That loosen the buds he has stolen, into flowers.
Grey, drooping-shouldered bushes scrape the edges
Of bending swirls of yellow-white flowers.
So do my thoughts meet the wind-scattered color of you.
A green-shadowed trance of water
Is splintered to little, white tasseled awakenings
By the beat of long, black oars.
So do my thoughts enter yours.
Split, brown-blue clouds press into each other
Over hills dressed in mute, clinging haze.
So do my thoughts slowly form
Over the draped mystery of you.
The night that wee Francesca died
The little night wind sighed and sighed.
Chill and dew-laden it crept in.
Beneath her tiny hands, so thin,
I laid some little friendly flowers
That saw her laugh in sunshine hours.
She loved those pansy faces best,
Wise-eyed they went with her to rest.
The trees looked very dark and old,
The stars gleamed so far off and cold.
Only the little night wind sighed
The night that wee Francesca died.
So much I had of you, yet not enough;
Some vague of loveliness you kept from me,
Some trick of April laughter, some grey stuff
Of grief, woven of lost sun and a lost sea.
I crooked my hand to reach you — you were gone!
And I was left as one without a wall —
Behind which white quince shows its veils of lawn —
A wayfarer, your lover not at all.
But now, I know you even as I am known;
Your foot makes stir of music in the air;
I pluck a wayside flower; upon mine own
Your fingers clasp; its small blue pomp we share;
And when life cumbers, and the hard tears start,
It is enough to run, straight to your heart!
Too strange, too far a thing to hold,
Our fingers slip, and let you go; —
A white, long flower high on a cliff,
With peril of the sea below.
We cannot match you as you are.
With aught or all within our reach;
Match shadows on an April pool?
Or moonlight rendered into speech?
You herd the stars up in the sky.
In silver smock, with a tall rod,
And to your arms, as shepherds do,
Gather the little lambs of God.
An apple orchard smells like wine;
A succory flower is blue;
Until Grief touched these eyes of mine,
Such things I never knew.
And now indeed I know so plain
Why one would like to cry
When spouts are full of April rain —
Such lonely folk go by!
So wise — so wise — that my tears fall
Each breaking of the dawn;
That I would run to tell you all —
But you are dead and gone.
While trimming the plants
I saw some flowers drooping.
I am a flower.
Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold,
Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old,
And cotton, scarce as any southern snow,
Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow,
Failed in its function as the autumn rake;
Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take
All water from the streams; dead birds were found
In wells a hundred feet below the ground--
Such was the season when the flower bloomed.
Old folks were startled, and it soon assumed
Significance. Superstition saw
Something it had never seen before:
Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year.
The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower--
the hypaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint--
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.
The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots--
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
Silver dust
lifted from the earth,
higher than my arms reach,
you have mounted,
O silver,
higher than my arms reach
you front us with great mass;
no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;
O white pear,
your flower-tufts
thick on the branch
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts.
Only a few hours!
We danced like wind,
Our faces like noon flowers
On one slim stem were lifted, turned aside.
You flew, I followed, matched your stride,
And held your pause, and swung and parted wide.
Only a few hours !
We danced like wind,
Thirsty as blown flowers,
Heavy lidded, fearful eyed.