Toward the Gulf Part 9

Like a star brushed out from leaves by a breeze When day's in the sky, though evening nears.

You are here by a tent with your little brood, And I approach in a quiet mood And see you, know that the Destinies Have surrendered you at last.

Voice, lips and hands and the light of the eyes.

And I who have asked so much discover That you find in me the man and lover You have divined and visualized, In quiet day dreams. And what is strange Your boy of eight is subtly guised In fleeting looks that half resemble Something in me. Two souls may range Mid this earth's billion souls for life, And hide their hunger or dissemble.

For there are two at least created, Endowed with alien powers that draw, And kindred powers that by some law Bind souls as like as sister, brother.

There are two at least who are for each other.

If we are such, it is not fated You are for him, howe'er belated The time's for us.

And yet is not the time gone by?

Your garden has been planted, dear.

And mine with weeds is over-grown.

Oh yes! 'tis only late July!

We can replant, ere frosts appear, Gather the blossoms we have sown.

And I have preached that hearts should seize The hour that brings realities. ...

Yes, I admit it all, we crush Under our feet the world's contempt.

But when I raise the cup, it's blush Reveals the snake's eyes, there's a hush While a hand writes upon the wall: Life cannot be re-made, exempt From life that has been, something's gone Out of the soil, in life updrawn To growths that vine, and tangle, crawl, Withered in part, or gone to seed.

'Tis not the same, though you have freed The soil from what was grown. ...

Heaven is but the hour Of the planting of the flower.

But heaven is the blossom to be, Of the one Reality.

And heaven cannot undo the once sown ground.

But heaven is love in the pursuing, And in the memory of having found. ...

The rocks in the river make light and sound And show that the waters search and move.

And what is time but an infinite whole Revealed by the breaks in thought, desire?

To put it away is to know one's soul.

Love is music unheard and fire Too rare for eyes; between hurt beats The heart detects it, sees how pure Its essence is, through heart defeats.-- You are the silence making sure The sound with which it has to cope, My sorrow and as well my hope.

VICTOR RAFOLSKI ON ART

You dull Goliaths clothed in coats of blue, Strained and half bursted by the swell of flesh, Topped by Gorilla heads. You Marmoset, Trained scoundrel, taught to question and ensnare, I hate you, hate your laws and hate your courts.

Hands off, give me a chair, now let me be.

I'll tell you more than you can think to ask me.

I love this woman, but what is love to you?

What is it to your laws or courts? I love her.

She loves me, if you'd know. I entered her room-- She stood before me naked, shrank a little, Cried out a little, calmed her sudden cry When she saw amiable pa.s.sion in my eyes-- She loves me, if you'd know. I saw in her eyes More in those moments than whole hours of talk From witness stands exculpate could make clear My innocence.

But if I did a crime My excuse is hunger, hunger for more life.

Oh what a world, where beauty, rapture, love Are walled in and locked up like coal or food And only may be had by purchasers From whose fat fingers slip the unheeded gold.

Oh what a world where beauty lies in waste, While power and freedom skulk with famished lips Too tightly pressed for curses.

So do men, Save for the thousandth man, deny themselves And live in meagreness to make sure a life Of meagreness by hearth stones long since stale; And live in ways, companions.h.i.+ps as fixed As the geared figures of the Stra.s.sburg clock.

You wonder at war? Why war lets loose desires, Emotions long repressed. Would you stop war?

Then let men live. The moral equivalent Of war is freedom. Art does not suffice-- Religion is not life, but life is living.

And painted cherries to the hungry thrush Is art to life. The artist lived his work.

You cannot live his life who love his work.

You are the thrush that pecks at painted cherries Who hope to live through art. Beer-soaked Goliaths, The story's coming of her nakedness Be patient for a time.

All this I learned While painting pictures no one ever bought, Till hunger drove me to this servile work As butler in her father's house, with time On certain days to walk the galleries And look at pictures, marbles. For I saw I was not living while I painted pictures.

I was not living working for a crust, I was not living walking galleries: All this was but vicarious life which felt Through gazing at the thing the artist made, In memory of the life he lived himself: As we preserve the fragrance of a flower By drawing off its essence in a bottle, Where color, fluttering leaves, are thrown away To get the inner pa.s.sion of the flower Extracted to a bottle that a queen May act the flower's part.

Say what you will, Make laws to strangle life, shout from your pulpits, Your desks of editors, your woolsack benches Where judges sit, that this dull hypocrite, You call the State, has fas.h.i.+oned life aright-- The secret is abroad, from eye to eye The secret pa.s.ses from poor eyes that wink In boredom, in fatigue, in furious strength Roped down or barred, that what the human heart Dreams of and hopes for till the aspiring flame Flaps in the guttered candle and goes out, Is love for body and for spirit, love To satisfy their hunger. Yet what is it, This earth, this life, what is it but a meadow Where spirits are left free a little while Within a little s.p.a.ce, so long as strength, Flesh, blood increases to the day of use As roasts or stews wherewith this witless beast, Society may feed himself and keep His olden shape and power?

Fools go crop The herbs they turn you to, and starve yourself For what you want, and count it righteousness, No less you covet love. Poor shadows sighing, Across the curtain racing! Mangled souls Pecking so feebly at the painted cherries, Inhaling from a bottle what was lived These summers gone! You know, and scarce deny That what we men desire are horses, dogs, Loves, women, insurrections, travel, change, Thrill in the wreck and rapture for the change, And re-adjusted order.

As I turned From painting and from art, yet found myself Full of all l.u.s.ts while bound to menial work Where my eyes daily rested on this woman A thought came to me like a little spark One sees far down the darkness of a cave, Which grows into a flame, a blinding light As one approaches it, so did this thought Both burn and blind me: For I loved this woman, I wanted her, why should I lose this woman?

What was there to oppose possession? Will?

Her will, you say? I am not sure, but then Which will is better, mine or hers? Which will Deserves achievement? Which has rights above The other? I desire her, her desire Is not toward me, which of these two desires Shall triumph? Why not mine for me and hers For her, at least the stronger must prevail, And wreck itself or bend all else before it.

That millionaire who wooed her, tried in vain To overwhelm her will with gold, and I With pa.s.sion, boldness would have overwhelmed it, And what's the difference?

But as I said I walked the galleries. When I stood in the yard Bare armed, bare throated at my work, she came And gazed upon me from her window. I Could feel the exhausting influence of her eyes.

Then in a concentration which was blindness To all else, so bewilderment of mind, I'd go to see Watteau's Antiope Where he sketched Zeus in hunger, drawing back The veil that hid her sleeping nakedness.

There was Correggio's too, on whom a satyr Smiled for his amorous wonder. A Semele, Done by an unknown hand, a thing of lightning Moved through by Zeus who seized her as the flames Consumed her ravished beauty.

So I looked, And trembled, then returned perhaps to find Her eyes upon me conscious, calm, elate, And radiate with lashes of surprise, Delight as when a star is still but s.h.i.+nes.

And on this night somehow our natures worked To climaxes. For first she dressed for dinner To show more back and bosom than before.

And as I served her, her down-looking eyes Were more than glances. Then she dropped her napkin.

Before I could begin to bend she leaned And let me see--oh yes, she let me see The white foam of her little b.r.e.a.s.t.s caressing The scarlet flame of silk, a swooning sh.o.r.e Of bright carnations. It was from such foam That Venus rose. And as I stooped and gave The napkin to her she pushed out a foot, And then I coughed for breath grown short, and she Concealed a smile--and you, you jailers laugh Coa.r.s.e-mouthed, and mock my hunger.

I go on, Observe how courage, boldness mark my steps!

At nine o'clock she climbs to her boudoir.

I finding errands in the hallway hear The desultory taking up of books, And through her open door, see her at last Cast off her dinner gown and to the bath Step like a ray of moonlight. Then she snaps The light on where the onyx tub and walls Dazzle the air. I enter then her room And stand against the closed door, do not pry Upon her in the bath. Give her the chance To fly me, fight me standing face to face.

I hear her flounder in the water, hear Hands slap and slip with water breast and arms; Hear little sighs and shudders and the roughness Of crash towels on her back, when in a minute She stands with back toward me in the doorway, A sea-sh.e.l.l glory, pink and white to hair Sun-lit, a lily crowned with powdered gold.

She turned toward her dresser then and shook White dust of talc.u.m on her arms, and looked So lovingly upon her tense straight b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Touching them under with soft tapering hands To blue eyes deepening like a brazier flame Turned by a sudden gust. Who gives her these, The thought ran through me, for her joy alone And not for mine?

So I stood there like Zeus Coming in thunder to Semele, like The diety of Watteau. Correggio Had never painted me a satyr there Drinking her beauty in, so wors.h.i.+pful, My will subdued in wors.h.i.+p of her beauty To obey her will.

And then she turned and saw me, And faced me in her nakedness, nor tried To hide it from me, faced me immovable A Mona Lisa smile upon her lips.

And let me plead my cause, make known my love, Speak out my torture, wearing still the smile.

Let me approach her till I almost touched The whiteness of her bosom. Then it seemed That smile of hers not wilting me she clapped Hands over eyes and said: "I am afraid-- Oh no, it cannot be--what would they say?"

Then rus.h.i.+ng in the bathroom, quick she slammed The door and shrieked: "You scoundrel, go--you beast."

My dream went up like paper charred and whirled Above a hearth. Thrilling I stood alone Amid her room and saw my life, our life Embodied in this woman lately there Lying and cowardly. And as I turned To leave the room, her father and the gardener Pounced on me, threw me down a flight of stairs And turned me over, stunned, to you the law Here with these others who have stolen coal To keep them warm, as I have stolen beauty To keep from freezing in this arid country Of winter winds on which the dust of custom Rides like a fog.

Now do your worst to me!