Collected Poems

IN MEMORY OF A SPANISH POET

And come down in the slow dusk Of Spain. Franco stands in a shining circle of police. His arms open in welcome. He promises all dark things Will be hunted down. State police yawn in the prisons. Antonio Machado follows the moon Down a road of white dust, To a cave of silent cliildreii Under the Pyrenees. Wine darkens in stone jars in villages. Wine sleeps in the mouths of old men, it is a dark red color. Smiles glitter in Madrid. Eisenhower has touched hands with Franco, embracing In a glare of photographers. Clean new bombers from America muffle their engines And glide down now. Their wings shine in the searchlights Of bare fields, In Spain. IN MEMORY OF A SPANISH POET Take leave of the sun, and of the wheat,for me. — MIGUEL HERNANDEZ, written in prison, 1942. I see you strangling Under the black ripples of whitewashed walls. Your hands turn yellow in the ruins of the sun. I dream of your slow voice, flying, Planting the dark waters of the spirit With lutes and seeds. 122 Here, in the American Midwest, Those seeds fly out of the field and across the strange heaven of my skull. They scatter out of their wings a quiet farewell, A greeting to my country. Now twilight gathers, A long sundown. Silos creep away toward the west. THE UNDERMINING OF THE DEFENSE ECONOMY Stairway, face, window, Mottled animals Running over the publicbuildings. Maple and elm. In the autumn Of early evening, A pumpkin Lies on its side, Turning yellow as the face Of a discharged general. It's no use complaining, the economy Is going to hell with all these radical Changes, Girls the color of butterflies That can't be sold. Only after nightfall, Little boys lie still, awake, Wondering, wondering, Delicate little boxes of dust. THE BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK 123 ...