Classic Poem

Drag your heart; go deep
Under the mirage of sleep:
Love whimpering like a most
Inarticulate little ghost.
Let moon water seep, sift
Easily into the earth, drift
Where stone is choked and hard
Roots are resolutely charred.
You will say seven things,
Seven words; wings, wings
Will beat your mouth like birds;
You will fight seven words;
You will say what you have said,
Bleed white as you have bled
Seven thousand times before
Since one word shut a door.
Having spoken, you will break
Star-thread, you will make
Fire freeze, ice thaw
Trapped in the dragnet claw.
What else? You have known
Dull necessities of stone
And your eyes have ached until
Tears were impossible. . . .
Still she stalks through your space
Of music with an old grimace —
Drag your heart; dredge, dredge,
Drive the urgent iron edge
Till the teeth bite below
Strata where no dream could go:
There is much you will find,
Never mind, never mind;
It will be over soon:
Trees inked against a moon
Blotted, blurred, awry in water
Where the moon bores to a spatter
Of writhing roots: that is why
You will twist all awry
As the dragnet gulps through
The black river bed of you.
It will leave you when it's done
Free to breathe like anyone;
Beauty like a rain will rise
Candidly across your eyes,
Wash them clean of little lies.
That is all. . . . And having said
" This hell has not known her tread,
Here her feet will never shed
Pallor like a bright wine;
This hell has no Proserpine! " —
Having said your say, she will
Suddenly brush a window sill;
Put breath on your hair;
Streak flame everywhere! ...
Always her hand gropes along
The window sill of every song!