Into the busy bustling world of young gazelles, For their anguished eye and ear, And a wall to keep the beasty wolves from their fingertips, And the tongues of hummingbirds distantly From their young and frightened throats. I hear the hearts of little girls beating Against the hearts of the young gazelles! It makes a white commotion in forests of thick pearl; Young jasmine buds on the fallen embers of the breeze. SPINSTERS October in New England: They are the gargoyles supporting old buttresses, Some of them love their father, Some of them watch for a sail That will never skim their horizon. They form the granite supports in the arches Of old cathedrals and mausoleums with shut doors. They hold the rafters up, whose lacework Is the fluttering place of bats. There is a spacious cobweb covering all their nights A stillness that is the speech of ice Consumes their swiftly gliding days. They mother the owl and nurse the adder In their vacuous dreams. Lost hopes run rivulets of despair Down their parchment cheeks. They are rushing eagles without a sky; Their pinions are drenched, their heads droop And they cannot soar for the beating of the rain. Soon, and they will join their sisters the leafless trees, Who stand like stone until the lightning strikes Them to the mouldy earth, or a lusty axe Fells them to the ground for the evening fire. With health and vigor and lust springing from the handle. Their eyes are like lanterns in the depths Of old cellars that are riddled with the years. Pass furtively by on the edge of the dusk For the sweet apples fallen from the once young boughs. They search the cellar, seeking the hummingbird, Gargoyles of stone soon the wind will have lifted And toy with the wind as if you had borne Litters of laughing children. The dust is your sighing place: When you have finished with the mottoes Of old gravestones-"here lies," and what was good Graven in white words You shall yourselves have one! Bats breed in belfries, hummingbirds on young boughs! HER DAUGHTER She was so young, so like a tigress, Her large round eyes of jet and amber With blue lustres in it, and her lips were round And they shot through the black wool mesh Great shafts of jungle fire out at one. She made no other overture. Following her, upon the bridge made of young trees Or, as one would say, blanched to a veritable white- Her mother, shaded by a parasol, walked discreetly Smiling at something, surely not this, Smiling with a vague enthusiasm; For she was too old to laugh heartily about lusting flesh. But she was young, so like a tigress Her very large round eyes of jet and amber And her hands were pale-the mother had no breasts. AFTER BATTLE I "I don't know where And every day was fair. How the water gurgles by the port! I hear the tread Of dreadful waves Above my head Or is it just the sea, Who have a sorrow On their brow." II I heard the thunder I heard it loud, and then I heard it still. They must have got some more I heard someone implore |