1247 Love poems

a senryu sequence when I come late to bed I move your leg flung over my side— that warm gate nights you’re not here I inch toward the middle of this boat, balancing when I turn over in sleep you turn, I turn, you turn, I turn, you some nights you tug the edge of my pillow under your cheek, look in my dream pulling the white sheet over your bare shoulder I marry you again

O that ’twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again!... A shadow flits before me, Not thou, but like to thee: Ah, Christ! that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be!

A Monodrama O that 'twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again! When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places By the home that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter Than anything on earth. A shadow flits before me, Not thou, but like to thee: Ah Christ, that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be. It leads me forth at evening, It lightly winds and steals In a cold white robe before me, When all my spirit reels At the shouts, the leagues of lights, And the roaring of the wheels. Half the night I waste in sighs, Half in dreams I sorrow after The delight of early skies; In a wakeful doze I sorrow For the hand, the lips, the eyes, For the meeting of the morrow, The delight of happy laughter, The delight of low replies. 'Tis a morning pure and sweet, And a dewy splendour falls On the little flower that clings To the turrets and the walls; 'Tis a morning pure and sweet, And the light and shadow fleet; She is walking in the meadow, And the woodland echo rings; In a moment we shall meet; She is singing in the meadow, And the rivulet at her feet Ripples on in light and shadow To the ballad that she sings. So I hear her sing as of old, My bird with the shining head, My own dove with the tender eye? But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, There is some one dying or dead, And a sullen thunder is roll'd; For a tumult shakes the city, And I wake, my dream is fled; In the shuddering dawn, behold, Without knowledge, without pity, By the curtains of my bed That abiding phantom cold. Get thee hence, nor come again, Mix not memory with doubt, Pass, thou deathlike type of pain, Pass and cease to move about! 'Tis the blot upon the brain That will show itself without. Then I rise, the eave-drops fall, And the yellow vapours choke The great city sounding wide; The day comes, a dull red ball Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke On the misty river-tide. Thro' the hubbub of the market I steal, a wasted frame; It crosses here, it crosses there, Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, The shadow still the same; And on my heavy eyelids My anguish hangs like shame. Alas for her that met me, That heard me softly call, Came glimmering thro' the laurels At the quiet evenfall, In the garden by the turrets Of the old manorial hall. Would the happy spirit descend From the realms of light and song, In the chamber or the street, As she looks among the blest, Should I fear to greet my friend Or to say "Forgive the wrong," Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet, To the regions of thy rest"? But the broad light glares and beats, And the shadow flits and fleets And will not let me be; And I loathe the squares and streets, And the faces that one meets, Hearts with no love for me: Always I long to creep Into some still cavern deep, There to weep, and weep, and weep My whole soul out to thee.

I have led her home, my love, my only friend, There is none like her, none. And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wished-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good. None like her, none. Just now the dry-tongued laurels’ pattering talk Seem’d her light foot along the garden walk, And shook my heart to think she comes once more; But even then I heard her close the door, The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone. There is none like her, none. Nor will be when our summers have deceased. O, art thou sighing for Lebanon In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East, Sighing for Lebanon, Dark cedar, tho’ thy limbs have here increased, Upon a pastoral slope as fair, And looking to the South, and fed With honeyed rain and delicate air, And haunted by the starry head Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, And made my life a perfumed altar-frame; And over whom thy darkness must have spread With such delight as theirs of old, thy great Forefathers of the thornless garden, there Shadowing the snow-limbed Eve from whom she came. Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, And you fair stars that crown a happy day Go in and out as if at merry play, Who am no more so all forlorn, As when it seemed far better to be born To labour and the mattock-hardened hand Than nursed at ease and brought to understand A sad astrology, the boundless plan That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand His nothingness into man. But now shine on, and what care I, Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl The countercharm of space and hollow sky, And do accept my madness, and would die To save from some slight shame one simple girl. Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may give More life to Love than is or ever was In our low world, where yet ’tis sweet to live. Let no one ask me how it came to pass; It seems that I am happy, that to me A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea. Not die; but live a life of truest breath, And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. Oh, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death? Make answer, Maud my bliss, Maud made my Maud by that long loving kiss, Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this? “The dusky strand of Death inwoven here With dear Love’s tie, makes love himself more dear.” Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay? And hark the clock within, the silver knell Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, And die to live, long as my pulses play; But now by this my love has closed her sight And given false death her hand, and stol’n away To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell Among the fragments of the golden day. May nothing there her maiden grace affright! Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. My bride to be, my evermore delight, My own heart’s heart, my ownest own, farewell; It is but for a little space I go: And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell Beat to the noiseless music of the night! Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow Of your soft splendour that you look so bright? I have climbed nearer out of lonely Hell. Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell. Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe That seems to draw—but it shall not be so: Let all be well, be well.

And in the end, all that is really left Is a feeling—strong and unavoidable— That somehow we deserved something better. That somewhere along the line things Got fouled up. And that letter from whoever’s In charge, which certainly would have set Everything straight between us and the world, Never reached us. Got lost somewhere. Possibly mislaid in some provincial station. Or sent by mistake to an old address Whose new tenant put it on her dresser With the curlers and the hairspray forgetting To give it to the landlord to forward. And we still wait like children who have sent Two weeks’ allowance far away To answer an enticing advertisement From a crumbling, yellow magazine, Watching through years as long as a childhood summer, Checking the postbox with impatient faith Even on days when mail is never brought.

Beloved, men in thick green coats came crunching through the snow, the insignia on their shoulders of uncertain origin, a country I could not be sure of, a salute so terrifying I heard myself lying to avoid arrest, and was arrested along with Jocko, whose tear had snapped off, a tiny icicle he put in his mouth. We were taken to the ice prison, a palace encrusted with hoarfrost, its dome lit from within, Jocko admired the wiring, he kicked the walls to test the strength of his new boots.  A television stood in a block of ice, its blue image still moving like a liquid center. You asked for my innermost thoughts.  I wonder will I ever see a grape again?  When I think of the vineyard where we met in October—when you dropped a cluster custom insisted you be kissed by a stranger—how after the harvest we plunged into a stream so icy our palms turned pink.  It seemed our future was sealed.  Everyone said so.  It is quiet here.  Not closing our ranks weakens us hugely.  The snowflakes fall in a featureless bath.  I am the stranger who kissed you.  On sunny days each tree is a glittering chandelier.  The power of mindless beauty!  Jocko told a joke and has been dead since May.  A bullethole in his forehead the officers call a third eye.  For a month I milked a barnful of cows.  It is a lot like cleansing a chandelier.  Wipe and polish, wipe and polish, round and round you go. I have lost my spectacles.  Is the book I was reading still open by the side of our bed?  Treat it as a bookmark saving my place in our story. (here the letter breaks off)

This to the crown and blessing of my life, The much loved husband of a happy wife; To him whose constant passion found the art To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart, And to the world by tenderest proof discovers They err, who say that husbands can’t be lovers. With such return of passion as is due, Daphnis I love, Daphnis my thoughts pursue; Daphnis my hopes and joys are bounded all in you. Even I, for Daphnis’ and my promise’ sake, What I in women censure, undertake. But this from love, not vanity, proceeds; You know who writes, and I who ’tis that reads. Judge not my passion by my want of skill: Many love well, though they express it ill; And I your censure could with pleasure bear, Would you but soon return, and speak it here.

My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, nay more, My joy, my Magazine of earthly store, If two be one, as surely thou and I, How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lye? So many steps, head from the heart to sever If but a neck, soon should we be together: I like the earth this season, mourn in black, My Sun is gone so far in’s Zodiack, Whom whilst I ’joy’d, nor storms, nor frosts I felt, His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt. My chilled limbs now nummed lye forlorn; Return, return sweet Sol from Capricorn; In this dead time, alas, what can I more Then view those fruits which through thy heat I bore? Which sweet contentment yield me for a space, True living Pictures of their Fathers face. O strange effect! now thou art Southward gone, I weary grow, the tedious day so long; But when thou Northward to me shalt return, I wish my Sun may never set, but burn Within the Cancer of my glowing breast, The welcome house of him my dearest guest. Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence, Till natures sad decree shall call thee hence; Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, I here, thou there, yet both but one.

I see you, not as you stand before me, so full of language threatening to spill from you, a silver-blue luminous substance the page of cups might carry in love, in a gold chalice, but as a child I might have seen, held, had I been an adult on that island where we might have become anyone other than ourselves. You are a sound you say your father carries, a beat in the heart of an African drum that seduced him with the thunder of Changó the red of blood and earth, a flesh-pink guava growing inside you, its seeds on the tips of your fingers like islands, like memories becoming leaves, their veined undersides becoming maps, palmlines, bridges where the sound of water collects childhood in a blue bucket of memory, where my Tío Machuco stands with childhood sandwiches I ate sitting on the cold terraza, leaning against the Southwest red of that couch Tía Hilda discarded like a useless memory when we were no longer voices in open rooms with connecting doors, when we were words, onion-skinned paper as transparent as re-written history or exile.

I In April we will pierce his body. It is March. Snow is dust over the branches. A pony hunches in the orchard. I stand at the frozen mouth of the river, Thinking of you. In the house where you live Frost glitters on the windows Like uncounted pieces of silver. Already they are preparing the wine and the bread. II The field is banked with purple asters And a spill of mustard flowers. The earth has taken on terrible proportions. Out in an unused meadow The wildflowers have already covered The delicate bones of an Indian. Bees are flying across the meadow To a hive under the rafters of the barn. Someone is leading a horse with crippled bones Into the spikes of clover. III Alexander died this morning, Leaving his worldly possessions To the strongest. I watched an empire fade across his lips. They propped him in the sun a while, And then three women came to scour his body Like a continent. I am afraid of what the world will do. Only this afternoon I heard two worms conversing In the shadow of his breastbone. I slipped out of the palace And entered a vein of gillyflowers On the edge of potter’s field. I will not be missed. No one even noticed. IV I have been thinking of the son I would like to have. The leaves have all gone yellow Overnight, wrinkling like hands In the updraught. I drove my car by the creek Because I had nowhere else to go. The milkweed’s delicate closet had been fractured, Filling the air with rumors. Despite all I could do, the sumac Had taken on the color of a mouth. Tonight, I perceive the young girls In my mother’s blood Letting their seed pass by unnoticed, A red nativity. V Last night they dragged the canal For an old man’s body. Now he is singing for a hook Just below water level. A branch of ice is splitting open Across each window, And snow is dismantling the weeds Like the breakable furniture of a boudoir. I have been rereading your letters. It is too cold for a virgin birth to occur Even in the frosty suburbs Of a wildflower. VI I have learned to camouflage myself in church, Masking my body With the body of a saint. Last night frost glazed the face of Mary Magdalene, And snow rode up to the altar windows. Before morning, the sparrows came down To the body of Saint Francis. Now he is upholstered in oak leaves Like a living room chair. This morning we are preparing a crucifixion. I am thinking of you now. With the velvet at my knees And the silverware shining on the altar And the stained glass moving out of focus And the cross veiled in black, I am present for the news of an enormous death. I take the bread on my tongue Like one of Christ’s fingers, And the wine rides through my breast Like a dark hearse. All the while I am thinking of you. An avalanche of white carnations Is drifting across your voice As it drifts across the voices of confession. But the snow keeps whispering of you over and over.