| And there was a booming above you
|
| That night black airplanes flew over the sea
|
| And they were lowing and shifting like
|
| Beached whales
|
| Shelled snails
|
| As you strained and you squinted to see
|
| The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
|
| You froze in your sand shoal
|
| Prayed for your poor soul;
|
| Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl
|
| And when the bread broke —
|
| Fell in bricks of wet smoke —
|
| My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
|
| Then there was a silence you took to mean something:
|
| Mean, Run, sing
|
| For alive you will evermore be
|
| And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking
|
| Has gone east
|
| While you’re left to explain them to me —
|
| Released
|
| From their hairless and blind cavalry
|
| With your hands in your pockets
|
| Stubbily running
|
| To where I’m unfresh
|
| Undressed and yawning —
|
| Well, what is this craziness?
|
| This crazy talking?
|
| You caught some small death
|
| When you were sleepwalking
|
| It was a dark dream, darlin;
|
| It’s over
|
| The firebreather is beneath the clover
|
| Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever:
|
| A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
|
| But I took my fishing pole (fearing your fever)
|
| Down to the swimming hole, where there grows a bitter herb
|
| That blooms but one day a year, by the riverside —
|
| I’d bring it here:
|
| Apply it gently
|
| To the love you’ve lent me
|
| While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed
|
| And the string sobbed
|
| As it cut through the hustling breeze
|
| And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly
|
| Gone treacly
|
| Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat;
|
| In a frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
|
| Press on me
|
| We are restless things
|
| Webs of seaweed are swaddling
|
| You call upon the dusk of the
|
| Musk of a squid:
|
| Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
|
| Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes
|
| I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!
|
| Smell of a stonefruit being cut and being opened
|
| Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
|
| And when the fire moves away
|
| Fire moves away, son
|
| Why would you say
|
| I was the last one?
|
| Scrape your knee: it is only skin
|
| Makes the sound of violins
|
| When I cut your hair, and leave the birds all the trimmings
|
| I am the happiest woman among all women
|
| And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see
|
| Knee deep, trudging along —
|
| The seagull weeps ‘so long' —
|
| I’m humming a threshing song —
|
| Until the night is over, hold on
|
| Hold on;
|
| Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
|
| I have got some business out at the edge of town
|
| Candy weighing both of my pockets down
|
| Till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
|
| (and knowing how the commonfolk condemn
|
| What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm:
|
| Being a woman. |
| Being a woman.)
|
| But always up the mountainside you’re clambering
|
| Groping blindly, hungry for anything;
|
| Picking through your pocket linings —
|
| Well, what is this?
|
| Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
|
| I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain
|
| Little sister, he will be back again
|
| I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain
|
| Spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and dangling
|
| Silently from all the blooming cherry trees
|
| In tiny nooses, safe from everyone —
|
| Nothing but a nuisance; |
| gone now, dead and done —
|
| Be a woman. |
| Be a woman
|
| Though we felt the spray of the waves
|
| We decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far
|
| We weren’t afraid, cause we know what you are;
|
| And you know that we know what you are
|
| Awful atoll —
|
| O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
|
| Bawl bellow:
|
| Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
|
| Toddle and roll;
|
| Teethe an impalpable bit of leather
|
| While yarrow, heather and hollyhock
|
| Awkwardly molt along the shore
|
| Are you mine?
|
| My heart?
|
| Mine anymore?
|
| Stay with me for awhile
|
| That’s an awfully real gun
|
| And though life will lay you down
|
| As the lightning has lately done
|
| Failing this, failing this
|
| Follow me, my sweetest friend
|
| To see what you anointed
|
| In pointing your gun there
|
| Lay it down! |
| Nice and slow!
|
| There is nowhere to go
|
| Save up;
|
| Up where the light, undiluted, is
|
| Weaving, in a drunk dream
|
| At the sight of my baby, out back:
|
| Back on the patio
|
| Watching the bats bring night in |
| — while, elsewhere
|
| Estuaries of wax-white
|
| Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
|
| Last week, our picture window
|
| Produced a half-word
|
| Heavy and hollow
|
| Hit by a brown bird
|
| We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
|
| And pant and labor over every intake
|
| I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace
|
| Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
|
| Said, «dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
|
| And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view.»
|
| Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight
|
| We tramped through the poison oak, heartbroke and inchoate
|
| The dogs were snapping, so you cuffed their collars
|
| While I climbed the tree-house. |
| Then how I hollered!
|
| Cause she’d lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two;
|
| Then saw the treetops, cocked her head, and up and flew
|
| (While back in the world that moves, often, according to
|
| The hoarding of these clues)
|
| Dogs still run roughly around
|
| Little tufts of finch-down
|
| And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland,
|
| But his hand, in my hand, made them hale and harmless
|
| While down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming;
|
| We have everything
|
| Life is thundering blissful towards death
|
| In a stampede
|
| Of his fumbling green gentleness
|
| You stopped by;
|
| I was all alive
|
| In my doorway, we shucked and jived
|
| And when you wept, I was gone;
|
| See, I got gone when I got wise
|
| But I can’t with certainty say we survived
|
| Then down and down
|
| And down and down
|
| And down and deeper
|
| Stoke, without sound
|
| The blameless flames
|
| You endless sleeper
|
| Through fire below
|
| And fire above
|
| And fire within
|
| Sleep through the things that couldn’t have been
|
| If you hadn’t have been
|
| And when the fire moves away
|
| Fire moves away, son
|
| Why would you say
|
| I was the last one?
|
| All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone
|
| Take my bones, I don’t need none
|
| Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on!
|
| Suck all day on a cherry stone
|
| Dig a little hole not three inches round —
|
| Spit your pit in a hole in the ground
|
| Weep upon the spot for the starving of me!
|
| Till up grows a fine young cherry tree
|
| When the bough breaks, what’ll you make for me?
|
| A little willow cabin to rest on your knee
|
| What’ll I do with a trinket such as this?
|
| Think of your woman, who’s gone to the west
|
| But I’m starving and freezing in my measly old bed!
|
| Then I’ll crawl across the salt flats, to stroke your sweet head
|
| Come across the desert with no shoes on!
|
| I love you truly
|
| Or I love no-one
|
| Fire moves away. |
| Fire moves away, son
|
| Why would you say that I was the last one, last one?
|
| Clear the room! |
| There’s a fire, a fire, a fire
|
| Get going
|
| And I’m going to be right behind you
|
| And if the love of a woman or two, dear
|
| Could move you to such heights
|
| Then all I can do
|
| Is do, my darling, right by you |