The Ghetto, And Other Poems Part 7

For I am the pyre their memories burn on...

Like black flames leaping Our fiery gestures light the walled-in darkness of the sea...

The sea that kneels above us...

And makes no sign.

PALESTINE

Old plant of Asia-- Mutilated vine Holding earth's leaping sap In every stem and shoot That lopped off, sprouts again-- Why should you seek a plateau walled about, Whose garden is the world?

THE SONG

That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron, And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the suns.h.i.+ne floating like cotton-down, And the harsh and terrible screaming, And that strange vibration at the roots of us...

Desire, fierce, like a song...

And we heard (Do you remember?) All the Red Cross bands on Fifth avenue And bugles in little home towns And children's harmonicas bleating

America!

And after...

(Do you remember?) The drollery of the wind on our faces, And horizons reeling, And the terror of the plain Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun...

Under us--thres.h.i.+ng and tw.a.n.ging Torn-up roots of the Song...

TO THE OTHERS

I see you, refulgent ones, Burning so steadily Like big white arc lights...

There are so many of you.

I like to watch you weaving-- Altogether and with precision Each his ray-- Your tracery of light, Making a s.h.i.+ning way about America.

I note your infinite reactions-- In gla.s.sware And sequin And puddles And bits of jet-- And here and there a diamond...

But you do not yet see me, Who am a torch blown along the wind, Flickering to a spark But never out.

BABEL

Oh, G.o.d did cunningly, there at Babel-- Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul, So that never again should men be able To fas.h.i.+on one infinite, towering whole.

THE FIDDLER

In a little Hungarian cafe Men and women are drinking Yellow wine in tall goblets.

Through the milky haze of the smoke, The fiddler, under-sized, blond, Leans to his violin As to the breast of a woman.

Red hair kindles to fire On the black of his coat-sleeve, Where his white thin hand Trembles and dives, Like a sliver of moonlight, When wind has broken the water.

DAWN WIND

Wind, just arisen-- (Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars, Or niche of cliff under the eagles?) You of living things, So gay and tender and full of play-- Why do you blow on my thoughts--like cut flowers Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?

I see you Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation And frisking away, Deliciously rumpling the gra.s.s...

So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle, Prattling of fields Before I had had my milk...

Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One?

I--swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg.

Let be My dreams that crackle under your breath...

You have the dust of the world to blow on...

Do not tag me and dance away, looking back...

I am too old to play with you, Eternal Child.

NORTH WIND

I love you, malcontent Male wind-- Shaking the pollen from a flower Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.

Blow on and over my dreams...

Scatter my sick dreams...

Throw your l.u.s.ty arms about me...

Envelop all my hot body...

Carry me to pine forests-- Great, rough-bearded forests...

Bring me to stark plains and steppes...

I would have the North to-night-- The cold, enduring North.

And if we should meet the Snow, Whirling in spirals, And he should blind my eyes...

Ally, you will defend me-- You will hold me close, Blowing on my eyelids.

THE DESTROYER

I am of the wind...

A wisp of the battering wind...

I trail my fingers along the Alps And an avalanche falls in my wake...

I feel in my quivering length When it buries the hamlet beneath...

I hurriedly sweep aside The cities that clutter our path...

As we whirl about the circle of the globe...

As we tear at the pillars of the world...

Open to the wind, The Destroyer!

The wind that is battering at your gates.

LULLABY

Rock-a-by baby, woolly and brown...

(There's a shout at the door an' a big red light...) Lil' c.o.o.n baby, mammy is down...

Han's that hold yuh are steady an' white...

Look piccaninny--such a gran' blaze Lickin' up the roof an' the sticks of home-- Ever see the like in all yo' days!

--Cain't yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb?

Rock-a-by baby, up to the sky!

Look at the cherries driftin' by-- Bright red cherries spilled on the groun'-- Piping-hot cherries at nuthin' a poun'!

Hush, mah lil' black-bug--doan yuh weep.

Daddy's run away an' mammy's in a heap By her own fron' door in the blazin' heat Outah the shacks like warts on the street...