| |
I WHEN the wind is soft, | |
| Amigo, | |
| Softer than the mittens on the magnolia buds, | |
| When crocuses have dissolved into air again | |
| And the grass is lonely, | 5 |
| I should like to hear you say, | |
| “Let’s talk.” | |
| I should like to be transfixed by your blue gaze | |
| And to defy your challenge. | |
| |
| Amiga mio, | 10 |
| When the magnolia is quite out | |
| You may come to see me. | |
| It will make your eyes more blue— | |
| The heaped white tree; | |
| At the same time it may help me to resist | 15 |
| Your impudent charm. | |
| |
II It is under your trees I would walk, my friend; | |
| Under your black pines, | |
| Looking out at summer in the meadows | |
| As at a pantomime. | 20 |
| Summer is all very well | |
| For a golden fringe around your forest … | |
| |
| Tell the dark trees to expect me | |
| Afterward … | |
| If I utter human words of longing | 25 |
| They will not heed me. | |
| Inscrutable dreamers above their indigo shadows, | |
| I shall not trouble them | |
| But they will know I am there. | |
| |
III The garden wrestling with dusk | 30 |
| Flings out a gleaming arm | |
| To fend off shadows … | |
| |
| “Night!” she cries, | |
| “Why take away my white foxgloves | |
| When you have the stars?” | 35 |
| |
| I have shining thoughts | |
| That resent darkness. | |
| When foxgloves give up their radiance, | |
| When lilies lean lower under weight of shadows, | |
| I think of you … | 40 |
| My thoughts hold the last light. | |
| |
| “Night!” I cry, | |
| “Why claim my love-thoughts | |
| When you have the moon?” | |
| |
IV Now these are dear to me: | 45 |
| Hyacinth with petal-points curled back, | |
| Twigs of willow, | |
| Thin twisting smoke of green | |
| Along the poplars, | |
| Trillium from the tall ravine … | 50 |
| |
| Hyacinth you broke into separate stars … | |
| Willow you plaited into a fillet for my head … | |
| Poplar-leaves you crushed for their spring-breath … | |
| Trillium you read aloud to me | |
| Like a poem … | 55 |
| |
V It is because I am afraid of my heart | |
| That I write about clouds and flowers; | |
| It is because no poem will hold you | |
| That I occupy my mind with rhymes and patterns. | |
| |
VI Where am I going? | 60 |
| I am going down the garden to the circle of the seven rose-trees, wherein I shall stand very still and close my eyes and tell myself roses do not exist. | |
| |
| What shall I be doing this afternoon? | |
| I shall be exchanging words with you through an hour cool like green shadow … even words and well-chosen … words of soft color and of pleasing shape … to help me try to believe you do not love me. | |
| |
VII I have come back to the dusk | |
| And your flowers in the dusk. | 65 |
| Shadows hide them | |
| But I know they are crimson. | |
| I can lose my thoughts among satin petals | |
| The color of wine. | |
| |
| Home to the dusk | 70 |
| And the sense of you in the dusk … | |
| Distance withholding you … bringing you near … | |
| There is crimson | |
| At the heart of this darkness. | |
| If you were with me | 75 |
| We should need no light | |
| But peonies. | |
| |
VIII On your way to the carnival in my heart | |
| You kissed my lips … | |
| |
| The whole sea plunged … | 80 |
| Endlessly it poured | |
| In green and shuddering columns past my spirit, | |
| Drowning what I had thought | |
| Myself. | |
| I felt the great waters possess me; | 85 |
| They followed my veins | |
| As they flow through the wavering anemone | |
| Far down the salt pool … | |
| Afterward I remembered | |
| How I swayed and swayed in the strange light, | 90 |
| But you did not let me fall. | |
| |
IX Fold down your love closely about me | |
| Like petals of a dark rose; | |
| Hide me in the wonder of it | |
| As in the golden core of a rose … | 95 |
| |
| Wrapped in your proud tenderness, | |
| Petal with petal softly interwoven, | |
| How I shall sing and sing, | |
| Though none may hear! | |
| Yet I shall be heard … | 100 |
| The stirring of wings in your heart | |
| Will be my dreaming, | |
| And your voice uttering yourself | |
| Will be my voice | |
| Forever. | 105 |
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