Collected Poems

THE ASSIGNATION

Furious to fly. For I could never bear Belly and breast and thigh against the ground. Now, having heaved the hidden hollow open As I was sent to do, seen Jesus waken And guided the women there, I wait to rise. To feel a weapon gouge between the ribs, He hung with a shut mouth: For curious faces round a chestnut fire, For the slow fluting doves Lost on a trellis, for the laughing girl Who frightened me away. But now I fumble at the single joy Of dawn. On the pale ruffle of the lake The ripples weave a color I can bear. Under a hill I see the city sleep And fade. The perfect pleasure of the eyes: A tiny bird bathed in a bowl of air, Carving a yellow ripple down the bines, Posing no storm to blow my wings aside As I drift upward dropping a white feather. THE ASSIGNATION After the winter thawed away, I rose, Remembering what you said. Below the field Where I was dead, the crinkled leaf and blade Summoned my body, told me I must go. Across the road I saw some other dead Revive their little fires, and bow the head To someone still alive and long ago. Low in the haze a pall of smoke arose. Inside the moon's hollow is a hale gray man Who washed his hands, and waved me where to go: Up the long hill, the mound of lunar snow, Around three lapping pebbles, over the crossed Arms of an owl nailed to the southern sky. from THE GREEN WALL 39 I spun three times about, I scattered high, Over my shoulder, clouds of salt and dust. The earth began to clear. I saw a man. He said the sun was falling toward the trees, The picnic nearly over. Small on the lake The sails were luring lightning out of dark, While quieter people guided slim canoes. I hid in bushes, shy. Already cars Shuttled away, the earliest evening stars Blurred in a cloud. A lone child left his shoes Half in the sand, and slept beneath the trees. With fires demolished, everybody gone To root in bushes, congregate by trees Or haul the yellow windows down to haze, I lost my way. Water in water fell, The badgers nibbled rootlets up the shore, For dancing more than food, where long before Women had gossiped. Chanting a soft farewell, Canaries swung. Then everything was gone. No hurry for me there, I let my dress Fall to the lawn, the pleasure of the silk Wind with the subtle grass, berries and milk Of skin sweeten me. Snuggling, I lay prone, Barren yet motherly for what might come Out of the emptied branches, man or flame. I shivered slightly. Everything was gone, Everyone gone. I kicked aside my dress. 0 then it was you I waited for, to hold The soft leaves of my bones between your hands And warm them back to life, to fashion wands Out of my shining arms. O it was you 1 loved before my dying and long after, You, you I could not find. The air fell softer, My snatch of breath gave out, but no one blew My name in hallowed weeds. Lonely to hold 40 Some hand upon me, lest it float away And be as dead as I, thrown in a sack Of air to drown in air, I rose, lay back In trees, and died again. The spiders care For trellises they hold against the sky, Except for walls of air the houses die And fall; and only for my flesh of air Your flesh of earth would lean and drift away; But you cared nothing, living, false to me. What could I do but take a daemon then And slouch about in dust, eager for pain Or anything, to keep your memory clear? A thing came down from the dark air on wings And rummaged at my limbs, to hold my wings Down in the dirt; I could not see for fear. The thing withdrew, full of the dark and me. And I was riven. Even my poor ghost Can never stand beside your window now; I stir the wind, I chatter at a bough, But make no sound. Your cowardice may keep You from your assignation with my ghost, The love you promised me when I was dust, Not air. And yet...