She stands in wet and likes it; drips rolling
around the brim of her split-bamboo conical
hat to fall on thirsting clay. Here's
weather at last, there having been sun,
sun, sun, a lip-cracking and tree-splitting
dry, since the vernal equinox. Nothing
had been vernal about it, and her land
knew so. The very fir limbs sulked;
willows on creek banks browned up and died;
birds fell everlastingly silent, dropping
on needle-sharp tufts of what had been haymow
beneath their perches in rattling cedars;
fish sought pools deeper than any there were,
crowding in together, fin by fin,
gulping and grunting, then rolling over
to bump along hot, slimed rocks and lodge
The potting room was a miserable dank
shed, trash-chocked, roofed in plastic, blackberries
ingrown amid bedlam. she dragged it all into
the light, sifting for tools or nails, then
consigning the rest to dump runs. With one son,
the quiet one, she roofed the room with scraps,
tucking, there, or here, oddly-sized old windows.
To the south, a sliding door turned on its side
served for greenhouse glass. A friend's offer
of a chimney to salvage solved the question of how
to floor. With her other son, the tall one, she
rented a long-legged ladder for picking bricks
from the air, frightened at every ragged breath.
They piled them by the plant-room door, and the girl,
From one hill to another extended
some grey clouds like clothes hanging on wire.
They hide the sun in their pockets and sleeves
making the day feel sad and depressed.
The birds with their beaks are pecking at them
in search of illumination and unfettered horizons
Their love for light and for the clean blue-sky,
has earned them wings and blessed their flight.
In my hands, I’m holding
this unbearably heavy ball of hope.
Watch me fold under its gravity.
Come, help heft this globe
of hope for me, that I might rest
awhile, and replenish my strength.
The poppy grows on the roof-top,
The iris flowers on the grave ;
Hope in the heart of a lover.
And fear in the heart of a slave.
The opal lies in the river.
The pearl in the ocean's breast ;
Doubt in a grieving bosom,
And faith in a heart at rest.
Fireflies dance in the moon-light.
Peach-leaves dance in the wind ;
Dreams and delicate fancies
Dance thro' a poet's mind.
Sweetness dwells in the beehive,
And lives in a maiden's breath ;
Joy in the eyes of children
And peace in the hands of Death.
Sleep, O my little ones, sleep.
Safe till the daylight be breaking . . .
We have long vigils to keep,
Harvests to sow while you sleep.
Fair for the hour of your waking,
Ripe for your sickles to reap.
Sleep, O my little ones, sleep.
Yours is the golden To-morrow,
Yours are the hands that will reap
Dreams that we sow while you sleep.
Fed with our hope and our sorrow,
Rich with the tears that we weep.
Nay, do not grieve tho' life be full of sadness,
Dawn will not veil her splendour for your grief.
Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty
To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf.
Nay, do not pine, tho' life be dark with trouble.
Time will not pause or tarry on his way ;
To-day that seems so long, so strange, so bitter.
Will soon be some forgotten yesterday.
Nay, do not weep ; new hopes, new dreams, new faces,
The unspent joy of all the unborn years.
Will prove your heart a traitor to its sorrow.
And make your eyes unfaithful to their tears.
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole--
Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
Day that dies in dusky blue:
For suddenly over the factories
I saw a moon in the cloudy seas--
A wisp of beauty all alone
In a world as hard and gray as stone--
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
When I was young, my hopes ran high —
My hopes did run, and so could I;
They danced upon the mountain tops
Oblivious of the traffic cops ;
They swung, like monkeys in the trees,
From sun and moon and Pleiades ;
They frolicked on the farthest wave
And thumbed their noses at the grave;
They thumbed their haughty bugles long
At men and creeds and right and wrong,
And gave the tin-horn days to come
Their only sound of fife and drum: —
Well, now my thyroid youth is done,
I'm very glad my hopes had fun!
In the fine land of Nowhere,
On the far side of There,
We shall be very happy,
We shall have no care ;
You will be the blossom;
I shall be the bough;
In the great time coming
After Now.
While you are crying.
Listen to my song;
My own heart is breaking.
But I shall be strong:
I shall be strong for thinking
Of the fine days and fair,
When we are done with being
Anywhere.
Hope that springs eternal in
The human breast, is fond of gin,
Or Scotch or beer or anything
Designed to help a hope to spring.