They step aside letting me clean their graves
There is a pagoda in the garden where they wait talking as I mourn
I hear a voice granting me this
That I can give up my life for anyone I wish brought back to life
But only one
Father of sacrifice needs no help to draw my pity
That is piteous
Mother of passion reigned over me
I resent that
Brother of empire I would re-instate
But why
Sister of sullenness I feel for
And ignore
Lovers of the moment I cannot deny
But they did not wait for me
Children of untold stories make the most promises
Oh I know you wait for me in the palace
But I am busy with the garden roses
Dazed fiery I take to their cool nectar pastures
Forgetful of the closing skies
Two hours before dawn your eyes open
and you tiptoe across cold linoleum
to check the thermometer outside: the thin,
red capillary’s clipped down to thirty-one.
After breakfast you glance at your father’s garden:
it’s going underground: carrots and a few potatoes
duck the frost. After last night’s freezing, leaves
of tomato vines curl and harden like arthritic hands.
From the kitchen in late afternoon, you watch
your father in his dying garden, oak boughs already
yellowing. They toss all around him in northerly gusts.
He patiently surveys the damage.
When you see his cotton shirt pulled taut across his back
as he stoops to pull a carrot, you try to steel yourself
against a quickened fear—perhaps
Back for a holiday, I visit
My home, that old cottage,
Conduct the new tenant over the grounds,
Say, “Here are the onions, back
From last year, I planted these.
A little ground fire in spring
Will weed through the blackberries,
In summer they’ll go to eight feet.
The sod here is cleared, for last summer
I took shovel, planted peas, lettuce,
Carrot, red radish. The sour kind
Of clover grows here on the lawn,
Boon to salads. Wild flowers,
Good for a week in the house.”
(By the wall, a garrulous stalk,
Alien seed pods clumped in the sun,
Bits of straw and clay and woman's hair, —
So shall be builded my house :
Oh to lose the world and gain a song !
Let the clouds flit through the window at the left ;
The dancers shapeless in pain and pride,
From the right dance in as a tide :
A spirit of pagan days, sick in joy,
That rose at the sound of their stamping feet,
I'll sing a song that makes the seas the hills.
(Morality begins, I am afraid, where I stop my song.)
Rags to roll me in, pieces of dream,
So with my heart of nocturnal fear ;
I have choice of the sky red in memory and art.
Let the stars fall in the garden rose :
The leaves and my souls in a thousand guises
Hurry to the ground to build a grave.
I too would run like Nicolette
Down aisles of rose and mignonette,
And stain my knees with midnight dew
Passing the ghostly gardens through,
If I should know that loverly
Young Aucassin awaited me!
And I could leave without regret
My warm white bed like Nicolette,
And flee from roof and candle-light
Into the deepest hour of night,
If by the ivy-shadowed wall,
I knew that Aucassin would call.
But I'll not tremble in the wet.
Nor bruise my feet like Nicolette,
Only to dream of his embrace,
Only to think I see his face.
Roaming the lonely garden, he and I
Pursue each other to the fountain's brim,
And there grow quiet — woman and butterfly —
The frail clouds beckon me, the flowers tempt him.
My thoughts are rose-like, beautiful and bright,
Folded precise as petals are, and wings
Uplift my dreaming suddenly in flight,
And fill my soul with jagged colorings.
The waters tangle like a woman's hair
Above the dim reflection of a face —
He thinks those are his own lips laughing there,
His own breasts curving under silk and lace.
How shall we know our real selves, he and I,
Which is the woman, which the butterfly?
Sad is old Ben Thistlewaite,
Now his day is done,
And all his children
Far away are gone.
He sits beneath his jasmined porch,
His stick between his knees,
His eyes fixed vacant
On his moss-grown trees.
Grass springs in the green path,
His flowers are lean and dry,
His thatch hangs in wisps against
The evening sky.
He has no heart to care now,
Though the winds will blow
Whistling in his casement,
And the rain drip thro'.
There were three cherry trees once,
Grew in a garden all shady;
And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,
Walked a most beautiful lady,
Dreamed a most beautiful lady.
Birds in those branches did sing,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet,
But she walking there was by far the most fair--
Lovelier than all else within it,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet.
But blossoms to berries do come,
All hanging on stalks light and slender,
And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,
With vows sweet and merry and tender;
A lover with voice low and tender.
Moss and lichen the green branches deck;
Pierrot stands in the garden
Beneath a waning moon,
And on his lute he fashions
A fragile silver tune.
Pierrot plays in the garden,
He thinks he plays for me,
But I am quite forgotten
Under the cherry tree.
Pierrot plays in the garden,
And all the roses know
That Pierrot loves his music,--
But I love Pierrot.
The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.
Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.
Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.
For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;
Hibiscus flowers are cups of fire,
(Love me, my lover, life will not stay)
The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind,
A scarlet leaf is blowing away.
A lizard lifts his head and listens--
Kiss me before the noon goes by,
Here in the shade of the ceiba hide me
From the great black vulture circling the sky.