Leaf-green shadows wait
on sea-green for melting snow-
gold to pass: full moon
Because the fever flames forever within,
We somehow, somewhere, sometime
Must begin to climb
The wounded weed-infested street
Exploring every empty house
In prescient fear
That nothing will be all that comes
To greet us in the grass-grown yards.
No secret one appears
To swing in splashing sun on derelict gates
Or leap with laughter from the ancient halls
Moldering behind the half-hung doors.
Nobody waits in silent surprise
Beside the crumbling walls.
No ear to hear, can there still be sound?
No eye to see, where is light’s playground?
Love? And no heart to feel:
Who then pleads blindly:
Please, somebody,
Please come and find me.
—For Sylvia Plath
I wonder if it was
that he could not endure
that if not more, not less
was what she brought
and truer;
a rightful match
a mind and soul to catch
his star-flung thought
to soar
if not beyond at least as far
I wonder if it was
just envy, fear
that made him count it less
to be so mated near
when what he wanted most
was a certain awe
and worshipful tear
One thing we know:
the starcrossed paths divergence made
and she was left alone
This thing we know:
he reached and took life’s easy trade
she inherited a stone
A feather blows by
Choreographed in blue light
Wind flowing softly
The golden harp sings
A blossom adorns the tree
Grass grows from the ash
Once in time in the sunlight land
South of the border and the Rio Grande
A heart could turn to the children at play
Where laughter was sweet as dawn of day
But the hours moved on and the sun burned down
And the laughter of children no longer is found
In the places or fields of their destroyed town.
A heart may long for that enchanted sound
And may search the shadows of faded light
Lured by memory, but while dark is supreme
The children like birds in their feathered night
Will be silent as they sleep and dream
For a morning to blossom sunshine bright
With music and songs (the darkness all gone)
With carefree laughter: sounds to delight
A heart with joy in a new rainbow dawn
There was the soundless plunge
of the round midnight ember
splitting cloud-carved marble:
the swift quicksilver moment
that sparked a taper
in the some-remembered realm
There was the splintering
of shattered crystal fever
on the obdurate dark:
the glimpse of startled lightning
igniting white-hot necromancy
into fleeting light
that fore-felt the step half-taken
fore-caught the thought half-spoken
fore-knew the door half-open
But it was the whispered word
the tender kiss of strength
molten flame unleashed
that flashed a flood lamp
upon long-known forgotten lands
and time cold rekindled
A glass, a bowl, a cup of tea,
A table, dainty and small,
A plate of cookies, iced, oh gee!
I’ll tell you now just how it was.
My mother, one day, thought
She’d give a tea, (that’s all she does.)
A social place she sought.
The Greens, the Stones, the Blacks, the Jones’,
She counted on fingers four.
Oh, paper, and pens, and telephones,
And STILL she thought of more.
“Oh, Johnny, dear, get mother a spoon,”
She sweetly called to me.
“And Johnny, bring a saucer soon
I’ll need it, too, I see.”
“Oh, Johnny, hon, do run up stairs
And get my apron, please.
And Johnny, bring those other chairs,
And fetch that cottage cheese.”
Willingly I did all these tasks,
My thoughts were on the cakes
When all at once my mother asks,
“John, go, for goodness sakes.”
The bell had rung, you might have known,
For what did I but hear,
A voice all sweet in stuck-up tone,
“Oh, chawmed, I’m sure, my dear.”
The social elite at last had come.
“They’ll eat it all,” I thought.
They wouldn’t think to leave me some.
“Woe is me, my earthly lot.”
With envious hate my brain burned up.
My one desire unchecked
I grabbed the cakes and drained a cup
And left the cloth all specked.
A week on cushions soft I sat
When Dad heard what I’d done.
Take warning now and don’t do that.
Indeed, it isn’t fun.
The Greens, the Stones, the Blacks, the Jones’
Went home quite shocked I’d say.
My mother cries and often moans,
“You’ve thrown my chance away.”
Who wants those stuck-up ’ristocrats
I’d surely like to know.
They come and talk and gossip and chat
And say, “I told you so.”
My mother doesn’t think that way,
And neither does my dad.
And when they speak of that awful day
It surely makes me sad.
My mother glowers at me now.
My father sternly peers
With cold grey eyes and says he’ll ’low
I’ll hang some day he fears.
Let me go out
Some sudden day
From light and laughter and pain
To that perfect peace the still ones know
Who have dreamed their dreams too long ago
To remember
This.
There—
Life forgotten,
Lost in Lethean slumber
A myriad eternities may roll by
With all their woes and not disturb my
Infinite
Bliss.