Then suddenly the conversation
Broke open and we could talk.
Now, out of mourning, at a fresh day’s beginning
She lays a frock upon her, and the long rays
Of rainbow colour crash to a peak as we make
The day’s plans. He’s of the mind merely,
Stampeding air, a monster of sickness rushed over a cliff,
Lips plucking with hooked cries and sheets failing
While wind still scales the rock
And leaps its clear lip, flows on
Through shaggy turf, across the plateau, lifting
Pollen through thin flowers, to where we stand.
The cries are thin athwart it at this brink
Dwindling in the mind.
But still the conversation broke suddenly—
Merely for an instant, and the quick decisive tendrils
Soon fastened and we could talk.
We talked of the park, with deer standing,
Golfers toying with thin cries down the slope;
Bushing antlers, green, and russet haunches;
We bent to the stiff hyacinths straight on the sill,
Heard the snapping of pollen smaller than pollen
Feasting in pollen, straightened
Our jackets of muscle, flexing, relaxing,
Eyeing, rejoicing; in the park the wind would be straining
All its muscles of grass to where we were standing
Or the coast in the car and dine in the evening
And the weight of the moon levering, flexing,
Walking and breathing the sea we rejoiced by
That made us so thirsty for it, drinking its spray,
And esplanade lamps with thin furring columns
That gnat faster and faster to pang at the summit, busy
As sharp stubble of spring rain piling
And patting mud
Over his bloodless head.
How the conversation would snap!
Now out of mourning she lies in her frock
Upon her like a shriek, and the long knives
Of rainbow colour clash to a peak. We could talk
But there’s the fall of the snow, and wind pulls
Its bent shapes beneath, and below,
Glassed in mud, abominably frozen, he.
But the conversation snapped
And we wait for his fading, to talk again;
Merely in the mind, at all seasons.
Apples ripen outside, crashing through the trees,
Feathered seeds catch on light white clothes:
I cultivate her mind to study these.
It catches less at things she loathes.
But still the thick rope snaps, the conversation closes.
Leave a Reply