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Two old crows sat on a fence rail. Two old crows sat on a fence rail, Thinking of effect and cause, Of weeds and flowers, And nature's laws. One of them muttered, one of them stuttered, One of them stuttered, one of them muttered. Each of them thought far more than he uttered. One crow asked the other crow a riddle. One crow asked the other crow a riddle: The muttering crow Asked the stuttering crow, “Why does a bee have a sword to his fiddle? Why does a bee have a sword to his fiddle?” “Bee-cause,” said the other crow, “Bee-cause, B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B-cause.” Just then a bee flew close to their rail:— “Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz             zzzzzzzzz             zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZ.” And those two black crows Turned pale, And away those crows did sail. Why? B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B-cause. B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B-cause. “Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz             zzzzzzzzz             zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZ.”

Although what glitters on the trees, row after perfect row, is merely the injustice of the world, the chips on the bark of each beech tree catching the light, the sum of these delays is the beautiful, the human beautiful, body of flaws. The dead would give anything I’m sure, to step again onto the leafrot, into the avenue of mottled shadows, the speckled broken skins. The dead in their sheer open parenthesis, what they wouldn’t give for something to lean on that won’t give way. I think I would weep for the moral nature of this world, for right and wrong like pools of shadow and light you can step in and out of crossing this yellow beech forest, this buchen-wald, one autumn afternoon, late in the twentieth century, in hollow light, in gaseous light. . . . To receive the light and return it and stand in rows, anonymous, is a sweet secret even the air wishes it could unlock. See how it pokes at them in little hooks, the blue air, the yellow trees. Why be afraid? They say when Klimt died suddenly a painting, still incomplete, was found in his studio, a woman’s body open at its point of entry, rendered in graphic, pornographic, detail—something like a scream between her legs. Slowly, feathery, he had begun to paint a delicate garment (his trademark) over this mouth of her body. The mouth of her face is genteel, bored, feigning a need for sleep. The fabric defines the surface, the story, so we are drawn to it, its blues and yellows glittering like a stand of beech trees late one afternoon in Germany, in fall. It is called Buchenwald, it is 1890. In the finished painting the argument has something to do with pleasure.

I.“If the Night Could Get Up & Walk” I cannot put my hand into a cabbage to turn on the light, but the moon moves over the field of dark cabbage and an exchange fills all veins. The cabbage is also a globe of light, the two globes now two eyes in my saturated head! II.“One Must Try Behind the Hills” Eight Great Dahlias stood beyond the Mountains. They set fire to the Sun in a black wood beyond the Mountains, in the Valley of Vision In the Valley of Vision the Fission of Flowers yields all Power in the Valley of Vision. Eight Suns on Eight Stems, aflame!

They’ve perched for hours on that window-ledge, scarcely moving. Beak to beak, a matched set, they differ almost imperceptibly— like salt and pepper shakers. It’s an event when they tuck (simultaneously) their pinpoint heads into lavender vests of fat. But reminiscent of clock hands blandly turning because they must have turned—somehow, they’ve taken on the grave, small-eyed aspect of monks hooded in conferences so intimate nothing need be said. If some are chuckling in the park, earning their bread, these are content to let the dark engulf them— it’s all the human imagination can fathom, how single-mindedly mindless two silhouettes stand in a window thick as milk glass. They appear never to have fed on anything else when they stir all of a sudden to peck savagely, for love or hygiene, at the grimy feathers of the other; but when they resume their places, the shift is one only a painter or a barber (prodding a chin back into position) would be likely to notice.

evening the priest let three rivers flow and a woman sing to her child I am afraid a woman Will burn my hair

Metropolitan Forecast

I You say, as one who shapes a life, That you will never be a wife, And, laughing lightly, ask my aid To paint your future as a maid. This is the portrait; and I take The softest colors for your sake: The springtime of your soul is dead, And forty years have bent your head; The lines are firmer round your mouth, But still its smile is like the South. Your eyes, grown deeper, are not sad, Yet never more than gravely glad; And the old charm still lurks within The cloven dimple of your chin. Some share, perhaps, of youthful gloss Your cheek hath shed; but still across The delicate ear are folded down Those silken locks of chestnut brown; Though here and there a thread of gray Steals through them like a lunar ray. One might suppose your life had passed Unvexed by any troubling blast. And such—for all that I foreknow— May be the truth! The deeper woe! A loveless heart is seldom stirred; And sorrow shuns the mateless bird; But ah! through cares alone we reach The happiness which mocketh speech; In the white courts beyond the stars The noblest brow is seamed with scars; And they on earth who’ve wept the most Sit highest of the heavenly host. Grant that your maiden life hath sped In music o’er a golden bed, With rocks, and winds, and storms at truce, And not without a noble use; Yet are you happy? In your air I see a nameless want appear, And a faint shadow on your cheek Tells what the lips refuse to speak. You have had all a maid could hope In the most cloudless horoscope: The strength that cometh from above; A Christian mother’s holy love; And always at thy soul’s demand A brother’s, sister’s heart and hand. Small need your heart hath had to roam Beyond the circle of your home; And yet upon your wish attends A loving throng of genial friends. What, in a lot so sweet as this, Is wanting to complete your bliss? And to what secret shall I trace The clouds that sometimes cross your face, And that sad look which now and then Comes, disappears, and comes again, And dies reluctantly away In those clear eyes of azure gray? At best, and after all, the place You fill with such a serious grace, Hath much to try a woman’s heart, And you but play a painful part. The world around, with little ruth, Still laughs at maids who have not youth, And, right or wrong, the old maid rests The victim of its paltry jests, And still is doomed to meet and bear Its pitying smile or furtive sneer. These are indeed but petty things, And yet they touch some hearts like stings. But I acquit you of the shame Of being unresisting game; For you are of such tempered clay As turns far stronger shafts away, And all that foes or fools could guide Would only curl that lip of pride. How then, O weary one! explain The sources of that hidden pain? Alas! you have divined at length How little you have used your strength, Which, with who knows what human good, Lies buried in that maidenhood, Where, as amid a field of flowers, You have but played with April showers. Ah! we would wish the world less fair, If spring alone adorned the year, And autumn came not with its fruit, And autumn hymns were ever mute. So I remark with small surprise That, as the unvarying season flies, From day to night and night to day, You sicken of your endless May. In this poor life we may not cross One virtuous instinct without loss, And the soul grows not to its height Till love calls forth its utmost might. Not blind to all you might have been, And with some consciousness of sin— Because with love you sometimes played, And choice, not fate, hath kept you maid— You feel that you must pass from earth But half-acquainted with its worth, And that within your heart are deeps In which a nobler woman sleeps; That not the maiden, but the wife Grasps the whole lesson of a life, While such as you but sit and dream Along the surface of its stream. And doubtless sometimes, all unsought, There comes upon your hour of thought, Despite the struggles of your will, A sense of something absent still; And then you cannot help but yearn To love and be beloved in turn, As they are loved, and love, who live As love were all that life could give; And in a transient clasp or kiss Crowd an eternity of bliss; They who of every mortal joy Taste always twice, nor feel them cloy, Or, if woes come, in Sorrow’s hour Are strengthened by a double power. * Here ends my feeble sketch of what Might, but will never be your lot; And I foresee how oft these rhymes Shall make you smile in after-times. If I have read your nature right, It only waits a spark of light; And when that comes, as come it must, It will not fall on arid dust, Nor yet on that which breaks to flame In the first blush of maiden shame; But on a heart which, even at rest, Is warmer than an April nest, Where, settling soft, that spark shall creep About as gently as a sleep; Still stealing on with pace so slow Yourself will scarcely feel the glow, Till after many and many a day, Although no gleam its course betray, It shall attain the inmost shrine, And wrap it in a fire divine! I know not when or whence indeed Shall fall and burst the burning seed, But oh! once kindled, it will blaze, I know, forever! By its rays You will perceive, with subtler eyes, The meaning in the earth and skies, Which, with their animated chain Of grass and flowers, and sun and rain, Of green below, and blue above, Are but a type of married love. You will perceive that in the breast The germs of many virtues rest, Which, ere they feel a lover’s breath, Lie in a temporary death; And till the heart is wooed and won It is an earth without a sun. II But now, stand forth as sweet as life! And let me paint you as a wife. I note some changes in your face, And in your mien a graver grace; Yet the calm forehead lightly bears Its weight of twice a score of years; And that one love which on this earth Can wake the heart to all its worth, And to their height can lift and bind The powers of soul, and sense, and mind, Hath not allowed a charm to fade— And the wife’s lovelier than the maid. An air of still, though bright repose Tells that a tender hand bestows All that a generous manhood may To make your life one bridal day, While the kind eyes betray no less, In their blue depths of tenderness, That you have learned the truths which lie Behind that holy mystery, Which, with its blisses and its woes, Nor man nor maiden ever knows. If now, as to the eyes of one Whose glance not even thought can shun, Your soul lay open to my view, I, looking all its nature through, Could see no incompleted part, For the whole woman warms your heart. I cannot tell how many dead You number in the cycles fled, And you but look the more serene For all the griefs you may have seen, As you had gathered from the dust The flowers of Peace, and Hope, and Trust. Your smile is even sweeter now Than when it lit your maiden brow, And that which wakes this gentler charm Coos at this moment on your arm. Your voice was always soft in youth, And had the very sound of truth, But never were its tones so mild Until you blessed your earliest child; And when to soothe some little wrong It melts into a mother’s song, The same strange sweetness which in years Long vanished filled the eyes with tears, And (even when mirthful) gave always A pathos to your girlish lays, Falls, with perchance a deeper thrill, Upon the breathless listener still. I cannot guess in what fair spot The chance of Time hath fixed your lot, Nor can I name what manly breast Gives to that head a welcome rest; I cannot tell if partial Fate Hath made you poor, or rich, or great; But oh! whatever be your place, I never saw a form or face To which more plainly hath been lent The blessing of a full content!

I went into one room and then I went into another. I was in a room inside a room. There I felt safe.

Re- demption comes & redemp- tion goes but trans- ience is here for- ever.

Behold the rocky wall That down its sloping sides Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, In rushing river-tides! Yon stream, whose sources run Turned by a pebble’s edge, Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun Through the cleft mountain-ledge. The slender rill had strayed, But for the slanting stone, To evening’s ocean, with the tangled braid Of foam-flecked Oregon. So from the heights of Will Life’s parting stream descends, And, as a moment turns its slender rill, Each widening torrent bends,— From the same cradle’s side, From the same mother’s knee,— One to long darkness and the frozen tide, One to the Peaceful Sea!