Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

In the Green Tree Lies Gray Ash (Selections)

In the Green Tree Lies Gray Ash (Selections) You leave. I can't recall the streets, alas, And those I recognize are strange, inert. The first line can be rhymed with Montparnasse, The second, with a shirt. But I don't want to rhyme— For you don't love me. I'm sad all the time, As if the sun had set for years and years today, As if a field ceased rustling its cornstalks and hay. But I don't want a simile, I'm sad because you don't love me.78 255 7X *p ijn * p x ixi •TT ix fnxn pa WTI ,Trxx TT i nx oyaxa nyi nyoaix •pnxp p a 71X nye^n x trra x lit Djraxa nyi 256 •o^nji ]»rii yr^a ix ^ pp e^a TT am ix fixn pa I'm writing you no love letters, But deep inside My heart cries out to you. My heart cries to you now, As it used to plead with my mother When I was a girl. Beneath my mother's eye I grew strong and brown and hot. Now your beads are Like a scarlet slash on my throat. Beneath my mother's sun I was a raspberry sapling, Streaming red with lustrous joy, Now I am a wintry tree, Ready for vicious winds. I'm writing you no love letters, But deep inside My heart cries out to you. 257 pya p 258 x »3 -px ,TT w n IIK Til K 7T ^ttTB OKI DKH •(T^ X f X BTDIj? At a limping table, our rendez-vous— I was the first to come, Not you (Yes or no, That's how poems go). The table gave a wobble And took off to meet you at a gallop. Above me, golden whiplets fanned the air, Until, wrapped in blue smoke, you stood near. At once the gallop set down on all fours And with silver hooves tapped out in my blood: Tup-tup, Tup-tup. Good, that you came, Good. (Yes or no, That's how poems go.) 259 ]»p x w i nya rx TT tra Ta JEPTIX ,trm p ^IK-Ty^^K ]2KH OKI! 260 Between you and me there is no more to say, And silence spreads across our way And entangles itself in our footsteps. Out of courtesy, I would like to say something, And I have nothing. So I raise my face. My smile is like a candle gleaming thinly, And I don't know whom I'll light up In the dark taciturnity, Myself Or you. On our table there are apples and bread And everything prepared for us by summer's prosperity. But like the withering leaves Are our words. 261 K ,Vis tnjni tryisnw x tra pixn DXT pni u ojn nya D ; T§ T'lx )bxS T T ,imiyx ^orn TT px oxn nxs p^i o^a rrn x m - on nyan ps ijrmjn:nx§ x o^in x ^ xD^xmxs px f "IKIW rx ^j? ]nxn oxn ^ ,wsyys TT wn lira cix-::^ - man yiw 262 ...