Willow Pollen 4

Willow Pollen 4

IV

 

_When the dawn comes it brings the crows._

_Caw! Caw! Caw! The crows!_

_The crow sleeps east but west he blows_

_To pick some carrion that he knows_

_Caw! Caw! Caw! It blows!_

 

 

V

 

I travel East to meet the sun

With a gray heron battling up against the wind,

Above the nests that knew the ravens in their sleep,

Above the trees that toss the light,

Above the rocks that blossom into rose,

On towards the sun!

It does not matter now how I am clothed;

For my mind glitters with a thousand thoughts,

Star-sown, moon-shaped, sun-colored,

Amber-shining like polished foliage in a great dawn wind,

And the lustre on the heron’s breast

Is now God and now the Morning Star:

I travel East to meet the sun!

 

 

 

 

BROWN MOTHER

 

 

Brown Mother, Earth Mother, my love does it stir, is it living?

Is this seed-time in darkness? It is bleak, and the rain

Drums hard on this silence, makes heavy my pain.

I am blind yet the wind does search me like eyes that are old.

O, my Mother, sweet Mother, through the lengthening night it is cold!

 

Brown Mother, Earth Mother, the swell of your bosom, the

scent of your hair,

They are life, they are death, two in one to your child,

Like the flame of your blossom, the sweep of your wild,

Or the primal red mud of life’s sowing.

 

Earth Mother, brown Mother, dear Mother, will the long night be run?...

Touch the root to its milk, do you say? Send the sap to the bud,

Feel the five-fingered leaf on my bosom, the grass on my lip?

Find my bed in the wild? Bear the rose and the lily for child?...

 

O, my Mother, Earth Mother, reach me round with your loving,

Fold me in to your heart, base me deep on your breast for this sleep!

 

Then, Mother, sweet Mother, with the clay and the spring I shall wake,

Turn my back to the East with its frost and its manacled trees,

Turn my face to the West and the blaze of my lover the Sun!

 

 

 

 

SEA GULLS

 

_On Leaving Eggemoggin_

 

 

Sea gulls I saw lifting the dawn with rosy feet,

Bearing the sunlight on their wings,

Dripping the dusk from burnished plumes;

And I thought

It would be joy to be a sea gull

At dusk, at dawn of day,

And through long sunlit hours.

 

Sea gulls I saw carrying the night upon their backs,

Wide tail spread crescent for the moon and stars--

The moon a glowing jelly fish,

The stars foam flecks of light;

And I thought

It would be joy to be a sea gull!

 

How I would dart with them,

Strike storm with coral spur,

Rip whirling spray of angry tides,

Snatch mangled, light-shot offal of the sea,--

Torn, tossed and moving terribly;

And stare for stare answer those myriad eyes

That float and sway, stab, sting and die away!

 

How I would peer from wide cold eyes of fire

At dusk, at dawn

And through the long daylight

Into those coiling depths of sea;

Then split the sun, the moon, the stars,

With laughter, laughter, laughter,

For the sea’s mad power!

 

 

 

 

DRAGON

 

 

_Some saw a dragon eating up the light,_

_Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!_

_Some heard a lost bird riding out the night,_

_Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!_

 

_But I saw_:

A low dark hill with its twisted back,

Two wings of flame from the green cloud rack,

A sprawling flank overlaid with leaf

Glitter and gleam and shine like steel,

Crackle and lash like a serpent’s tail!

 

_And I heard_:

The wind draw out of the west and wail,

Dance and stagger and jig and reel

With the long low sound of a life in grief!

 

_I saw a life in grief_

_Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!_

_Dance and stagger and jig and reel!_

_Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!_

 

 

 

 

THE WANDERER

 

 

Hear the illimitable wind

Rush from a desolate sea of space

Into the valley’s folded gloom,

And smite the branches gibbeted

On frosty trees, and lash the woods

To moans of age-old agony!

 

Hark! how it leaps upon the roofs

Of cottages, to drop whimpering

Like some old dog before the door of home;

Or pipes through chink and sill, a witless thing.

 

It is the only houseless one,

A pensioner of sea and cloud,

An outcast in a universe

Of night and day, of life and death,

An alien, frenzied wanderer,--

Homeless, illimitable wind!

 

 

 

 

BLIND SLEEP

 

 

In dreams have come to stay

Earth’s golden bonnet of the day,

Her gay attire,

The dove wings gray she wore at dawn,

The ivory of her cradled breast,

Her dusk of plumèd fire,

And all her garments of delight.

 

Heavily I grope

Step after step,

Afar,

About this star-illumined sod,

Silver with all the slumber of the world,

Jewelled with every gem of light,

Splintered with frosty air,--

And know blind sleep.

 

 

 

 

THE BOWL

 

 

God said, “For you this bowl is life!

Draw near and look!

Therein is the bright water of dawn,

Night’s silver covering of rain!

Therein is dream lying like day,--

Topaz with sun upon it!

Lithe out of this bowl

Shall leap the larch in spring,

For this is love,--

Green flame of flight to the very tip!”

 

I looked into the bowl, wondering:

And night and dawn mingled

And sleep stirred

And the day turned in its dream,

And flame, flickering, swept the bowl’s lip.

Then I took the bowl in my two hands,

Thanking God.

 

But now in my bowl dawn breaks no more,

Over the bowl’s lip I hear the iron shudder of dry leaves

Beaten by frozen wind.

There is no rain to soften sleep,

No day like topaz in the sun,

I see the larch crumble to ash,--

My arms grow numb back to the very heart

Holding this bowl God gave to me!