I lie here thinking of you:---
the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branched the lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world-
you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!
Distance nor death shall part us, dear,
Nor yet the traitor word;
And love shall live within our home
As blithe as any bird.
The sight of you is in my eyes,
Your touch is in my hand;
They cannot part us now, my love,
With miles of weary land.
Man with his sword and Death his scythe,
Are but the tricks of time,
To tease me with the empty years
Before we shared one name.
There was a time when in your face
There dwelt such power, and in your smile
I know not what of magic grace;
They held me captive for a while.
Ah, then I listened for your voice!
Like music every word did fall,
Making the hearts of men rejoice,
And mine rejoiced the most of all.
At sight of you, my soul took flame.
But now, alas! the spell is fled.
Is it that you are not the same,
Or only that my love is dead?
I know not--but last night I dreamed
That you were walking by my side,
Love quickly is pall'd,
Tho' with labour 'tis gain'd;
Wine never does cloy
Tho' with ease 'tis obtain'd.
We sing while you sigh,
We laugh while you weep;
Love robs you of rest,
Wine lulls us asleep.
He play'd his wings as tho' for flight;
They webb'd the sky with glassy light.
His body sway'd upon tiptoes,
Like a wind-perplexed rose;
In eddies of the wind he went
At last up the blue element.
After months of silence, there comes a day
When I feel I can turn anything I wish to say
Into poetry. And they talk so much
About the discipline of being a poet,
Of setting up schedules for practicing the craft.
But look at us vagrants-the muse feeds us too,
And we too manage to scrape by.
So Ezekiel was right.
As it is with love, it must be with poetry:
Wait, wait, wait, and never force the pace.
Years vanish behind one, leaving only the debris
Of so many wasted afternoons with no sympathy,
(1)
Of my plight, I won't speak;
You have asked - so kind of you.
(2)
If it's not of pangs of love you are suffering,
why then you steal your glance
and bat your eyelids on meeting?
(3)
If you forget, it'll leave me heart-broken;
I'm but sure you'll fondly remember,
when I'm gone.
(4)
Earlier my eyes were tearful streams,
Mir, now these are just a desert!
(5)
How much low was my heart at night, Mir,
It was our first great war
And after the first successful sortie
Into the nomansgland between her thighs
We waited anxiously every month
for poppysellers to appear in her streets
I want to write you
a love poem as headlong
as our creek
after thaw
when we stand
on its dangerous
banks and watch it carry
with it every twig
every dry leaf and branch
in its path
every scruple
when we see it
so swollen
with runoff
that even as we watch
we must grab
each other
and step back
we must grab each
other or
get our shoes
soaked we must
grab each other
Yours is the face that the earth turns to me,
Continuous beyond its human features lie
The mountain forms that rest against the sky.
With your eyes, the reflecting rainbow, the sun's light
Sees me; forest and flower, bird and beast
Know and hold me forever in the world's thought,
Creation's deep untroubled retrospect.
When your hand touches mine it is the earth
That takes me--the green grass,
And rocks and rivers; the green graves,
And children still unborn, and ancestors,
