Willow Pollen 5

Willow Pollen 5

 THE GREAT SILENCE

 

 

I

 

Magnificent, my Own,

Across the City’s crash of sound,

Above the marching of her war-shod feet,

I hear you call, “I am alone,--alone!”

In that full, tragic voice of yours repeat,

Echo and tone,

“Alone,--I am alone!”

 

 

II

 

Oh, Splendid One,

The stars still hang the City’s night

With peace and light!

What wars could ever bind

The signing of God’s universe in space?

You turn your eyes,

Burning, ancient, wise,

And speak, “All have I seen,

Evil and good,

All man has been,

All man has done,--

And I am blind.”

But God, I cried ...

Then came your moan,

Like Pontius Pilate overthrown,

“God I have denied!”

 

 

III

 

Magnificent, my Own,

There beyond the City’s sky

Are pinnacle and dream,

The rushing of a mighty stream,

The night-wind’s cry

And thunder-harp of pine.

“Oh, Christ,” you weep,

“They are not mine,

They are not mine!

I cannot see, I cannot hear,

Only I remember year on year

Abel and Cain.

Yet somewhere in this welter of my pain

I keep

Memory of another,--

those two lost syllables of doom.”

“What syllables are they, my Own?”

“That word is ‘Brother’!”

 

 

 

 

WHITE HAIR

 

 

All the warmth has gone out of white hair,

It only answers to the wind

And lifts and stirs like creeping snow

Close to the frozen scalp of earth.

It has no gold of autumn grasses

Or red of beech buds

Or warm brown of tree bark

Or depths of quiet

In which eyes burn like star-flame in a dark night.

 

Has death white hair

And the cramped empty shoulders of old age?

If he has, I shall be as a child, frightened and trying to hide from him.

But if his touch is the touch of warm rain,

If his breath is sweet like the gray-green fruit of the juniper,

If his shoulder is deep and strong like the up-heaved root of hemlock

And his hair velvet-dusk as a moth’s wing,

Then I shall go to him gladly,

And sleep well....

 

 

 

 

CLEAR POOLS

 

 

What is this bitterness of love that scatters dust in the eyes?

What this absence that shrivels the heart and the blood?

What these cries that stop the ears with their pain?

Let us take our love unto God,

He understands, He has fashioned us and is kind;

How well He knows that love must carry its burden

If it would run to bathe in clear pools and lift its eyes to the stars!

 

What are we that we should not know that we are His,

And of Him our passion and of Him our tears?

His breast is deep and He will fold us there

In the mystery of His dark, in the miracle of His closeness.

Distance from us knows He not nor space,

And our love which is His how can it be divided from itself?

Are we not one even as we are His?

 

What is that cry?

Is it sorrow or is it the wind upon the waters?

What is this light that flows like a brook?

How well He knows that love must carry its burden,

If it would run to bathe in clear pools and lift its eyes to the stars!

 

 

 

 

THESE TWO

 

 

Sometimes when I am alone at night

I put my hand upon my heart;

But it matters little to me that these two are one

From the deep inflow of the rushing blood

Even to the extremity of each living finger

Swung from hollowed palm and flexible wrist:--

This heart and hand that are so wonderful,

So joined in life; so fashioned

In the beat of pulse

And passionate discernment of touch for joy,

So separate and yet not to be divided.

 

It is not of them I am thinking

When I place my hand on my heart

In the lonely night.

In its weight

Again I feel your head lying on my breast

And in its touch the oval of your childlike face.

You are wide-eyed once more,

With those gray eyes of the sea

Full of space and the shadows of birds’ wings

And the terror of known depths of human tragedy;

You are wide-eyed now

Looking into the dark with me,

Wondering about the night.

 

I cannot believe that it is only my own hand upon my heart

And that we are separated;

I cannot understand the use of my own fingers

Or the beating of my own pulse;

And I take my hand away

And lie alone in the dark

And suffer.

 

 

 

 

THE RAILROAD STATION

 

 

A station is a place of miracle:

So many trains passing and repassing,

So many thoughts coming and going,

So many greetings and farewells!

Any surprise might happen there:

God come and go,

Street cries turn to stars,

Dust of blown rubbish whirl to aureole!

Thus, in such a place,

Love met me once.

That day the shining tracks seemed leaping toward eternity,

And we heard the street cries sing like stars,

And we saw God come and go

And the dust upon our hair was gold!

Now, blinded, I look past all I see:

It might happen,

Love might be there again!

It’s not that I think a railroad station heaven.

Who does!

Yet so many greetings and farewells,--

Anything might happen!

Have you not felt that way,

And, bewildered, watched;

And, longing, waited?

 

 

 

 

BUBBLES

 

 

How shall I link my thought to yours

Through hours that whirl to dust!

Fling me some word will keep me close to you,

If but a rainbow bubble like our breath,

And share with me its swift-revolving dream!

 

See how the bubble shapes the silver moon, the golden sun!

In purple sleep it spins among the stars,

Or crimson film it holds the dawn,

Only to break in shattered mist upon our lips,--

One azure word turned kiss!