Night

Who sighed?

It was the little top-most leaf
Of aspen bough, when rocked somehow
By a hand somewhere; hearing the air
Of that which Is in that which Seems,
Wafting its heart

Of dreams.

Holy, feel the touch of dew;
Holy, feel the kiss anew.

Who breathed?

It was the humblest flower,
Whose humid scent in petal tent

Turned up the flap and, joy enwrapped,
Escaped the clay to float on air;
Nodding her head

In prayer.

Sadness, touch of the mystic scene-
Sadness, touch of the hand unseen!
Who prayed?

It was I, but a new-born babe,
Whose thoughts unpent, in bewilderment,
Fumbled for light in the web of night;
A cry of nothingness unto infinite skies;
Sweeping my strings

Of sighs.

Frank S. Gordon

POETRY: A Magazine of Verse

IN THE DESERT/

I

I have seen you, O king of the dead,

More beautiful than sunlight.

Your kiss is like quicksilver;
But I turned my face aside
Lest you should touch my lips.

In the field with the flowers
You stood darkly.

My knees trembled, and I knew
That no other joy would be like this.

But the warm field, and the sunlight,
And the few years of my girlhood
Came before me, and I cried,

Not yet!

Not yet, O dark lover!

You were patient.

-I know you will come again.

I have seen you, O king of the dead,
More beautiful than sunlight.

Corbin, Alic

In the Desert

II

Here in the desert, under the cottonwoods

That keep up a monotonous wind-murmur of leaves,
I can hear the water dripping
Through the canals in Venice
From the oar of the gondola
Hugging the old palaces,
Beautiful old houses

Sinking quietly into decay.

O sunlight-how many things you gild

With your eternal gold!

Sunlight and night-are everlasting.

Shall I keep turning?

Is it worth while?

Everything holds its breath.

The trees huddle anxiously

On the edge of the arroyo,

And then, with a tremendous heave,

Earth shoves the hours on towards dawn.

IV

Four o'clock in the afternoon.

A stream of money is flowing down Fifth Avenue.

They speak of the fascination of New York

Climbing aboard motor-busses to look down on the endless

play

From the Bay to the Bronx.

But it is forever the same:

There is no life there.

Watching a cloud on the desert,

Endlessly watching small insects crawling in and out of the shadow of a cactus,

A herd-boy on the horizon driving goats,
Uninterrupted sky and blown sand:

Space-volume-silence

Nothing but life on the desert,
Intense life.

The hill cedars and piñons

Point upward like flames,

V

Like smoke they are drawn upward

From the face of the mountains.

Over the sunbaked slopes,

In the Desert

Patches of sun-dried adobes straggle;

Willows along the acequias in the valley

Give cool streams of green;

Beyond, on the bare hillsides,

Yellow and red gashes and bleached white paths
Give foothold to the burros,

To the black-shawled Mexican girls

Who go for water.

INDIAN SONGS

LISTENING

The noise of passing feet

On the prairie

Is it men or gods

Who come out of the silence?

BUFFALO DANCE

Strike ye our land

With curved horns!

Now with cries

Bending our bodies,

Breathe fire upon us;