Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
From where I lingered in a lull in March
Outside the sugar-house one night for choice,
I called the fireman with a careful voice
And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch:
‘O fireman, give the fire another stoke,
And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.’
I thought a few might tangle, as they did,
Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare
Hill atmosphere not cease to glow,
And so be added to the moon up there.
The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show
On every tree a bucket with a lid,
And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow.
The sparks made no attempt to be the moon.
They were content to figure in the trees
As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades.
A tom-tom sun awakens day's jungle with heat beats
The moon was a white war canoe moored to the night
Morning stars scurry to cover like shaking hares fearful of the Great Yellow Hunter
Last night's tall hunchback fishing in a pool of raven's breasts is a green elm tree
Thin wings of grass pound helplessly against hard ground
And the robins are no longer afraid . . .
Come to me in the baby hours of morning . . . when the moon is a full grown woman letting her platinum veil trail from heaven . . . before high hills toss a yellow sun into the sky like a boy with a rubber ball
Let us meet beside a cool tall pine with stars in her hair . . . only a pine . . . the thin green fingers of grass . . . and the small hushed voices of woodfolk
I must sense you as you come to me . . . the warmth of you like a rolling prairie fire . . . scaring flame . . . eating into my mind with sharp hot teeth
Moon slivers, sun parings, a basket of ripened dreams . . . show me these lovely things again . . .
Who knows?
Perhaps the cloudless night
is a veil of dull black silk
set with small white diamonds
and one yellow pearl
to cover the face
of the infinite
from the vulgar gaze of man.
We ride to Echo Canyon,
He rides with me tonight,
No moon above to guide us,
The stars alone are bright.
The wind is in the sagebrush;
Somewhere a coyote calls;
The studded sky is briefly lit
As a flaming starlet falls.
We draw the rein together,
He trembles as I pass
To turn the horses free to graze
In the wild September grass.
And now I stretch beside him
Where he lies upon the ground,
And in all this lovely wilderness
We two alone are found.
Through Sumac's pointed
fingers she watched orions
belt flicker in the dark.
Reaching between fronds
she felt her lover
shudder as shooting stars
tracked across the sky.
Come to me
before the dawn
dims the stars.
The same wave
that washes
the clouds
moves in your
fluttering breath.
Let me see the
play of shadows
on your breasts.
Let me part the rose
that roots
in your heart.
Let me bathe
in the warm sound
Lying on my back on the floor I look up through the tangle of trees to the last slice of the
luminous full moon. All that crowded my mind to the brim this especially busy day
vanished. And then the strange radiating burnished orange ball, so far away and yet so
close in all its strangeness.
lunar eclipse
all of the stars
so much brighter
You were the princess of the fairy tale
Who spoke in emeralds instead of words,
Whose laughter left an exquisite, bright trail
Of sounds as winged and visible as birds.
I never knew until yours went from me,
That any voice could love my name so much,
That just to speak it made it seem to be
A fragrance and a color and a touch.
My days are gestures of bewilderment,
My nights are attitudes of listening.
For fear you may have whispered as you went,
And I shall lose the starlike echoing.
No, his exit by the gate
Will not leave the wind ajar;
He will go when it is late
With a misty star.
One will call, he cannot see;
One will call, he will not hear;
He will take no company
Nor a hope or fear.
We shall smile who loved him so--
They who gave him hate will weep;
But for us the winds will blow
Pulsing through his sleep.
Del Cascar, Del Cascar
Stood upon a flaming star,
Stood and let his feet hang down
Till in China the toes turned brown.
And he reached his fingers over
The rim of the sea, like sails from Dover,
And caught a Mandarin at prayer,
And tickled his nose in Orion’s hair.
The sun went down through crimson bars,
And left his blind face battered with stars--
But the brown toes in China kept
Hot the tears Del Cascar wept.