“Je te veux”
You are a fallow pasture
Swaying in a summer breeze.
You are an ivory-plaited surf
Where pelicans trace the seas.
You are a winter sky
With cordoned stars so bright
The moon must pause to marvel
In its nocturnal flight.
You are a lake and cove
Whose waters are never still.
You are those piney woodlands
You wander at your will.
You are a festive banquet,
A gate that never closes.
You are a font of laughter
Wherein all joy reposes.
You are my heart’s desire,
A petal in a nook;
A melody of lovely tone;
A lily by a brook.
You are a crown of honor
Imperishable and true.
You are everything I ever sought,
A paradise in you.
Sorcerer (To a Marionette)
Take your staff, your arcane book,
Your peakèd cowl and gnarly crook
And conjure me a magic spell
That all my problems can dispel
And make my enemies run away
Or stoop in meekness to my sway.
I’ll pay you with a handsome fee
As long as you serve up to me
My surly boss trussed like a swine
And pickled in a keg of brine.
And then my neighbor can be next —
Soundly hoodooed, soundly hexed.
That I think will do for now.
So sneer your lips and crimp your brow.
From Late Autumn at Dumbarton Oaks
Petite chanson d’amour avec bourdon
My Phyllis fine, she is so fair,
She dances on the dappled air;
Her sprightly brows and silken hair
Frame with gold her sapphires rare.
Burden: “Her eye is swift, her foot is fleet.”
For I would all her love entreat.
My Phyllis veils her shoulders bare
With fragrant flowers so debonair
That she is worshiped everywhere
But does not heed my rueful prayer.
Burden: “Her eye is swift, her foot is fleet.”
She spins for me my winding-sheet.
Can a poem about
A hummingbird
Be longer than
Than a single word?
Dizain XII
I tried to do what I could do
What other options did I have?
The gifts I sent were all returned,
With neither courtesy nor grace
But with anger and contempt,
As if the offerings themselves
Were poisonous and basely meant
I have no will to contradict
Where contradiction can’t avail
And truth itself can’t fail to fail.
(From Farewell . . . and if Forever)
Health Report
A brandied liver, lungs in brine,
A face as flushed as old stale wine,
A pickled heart, a kneaded spine
Otherwise, I’d say I’m fine.
Pup
What gratitude would I not give
To have you, Pup, back home to live,
To see you coursing o’er the field
Or through the brushwood half-concealed.
The hall and hearth are not the same
As when you dozed before the flame,
Heeding in dream the sounding horn
Or chasing woodcocks from the thorn.
Your hazel eyes and golden fur
Would autumn pastures yet bestir.
Your life was filled with vim and grace;
Your love could all my love outpace.
Beyond these hills I know you run,
Beyond the thickets of the sun,
Where ages hence we’ll reunite
In boundless forests ever bright.
Dizain XVII
Let us not be too eager to regret
Our regrets; nor be too eager to repel
The sorrows and bereavement of our souls.
That we have had them only shows us that,
However marred our obverse coins may be,
The reverse sides, as hidden as they were,
Were but the tokens of the face of love.
I would regret if I could not regret
The dark shadow that in my heart resides
Where this, my song, my song of joy, abides.