The Vers Libre Contest

Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain, treasure spilled near the shrub-pines to bleach on the boulders: your stalk has caught root among wet pebbles and drift flung by the sea and grated shells, and slit conch-shells. Beautiful, wide-spread, fire upon leaf, what meadow yields so fragrant a leaf as your bright leaf?

Grey drooping-shouldered bushes scrape the edges Of bending swirls of yellow-white flowers. So do my thoughts meet the wind-scattered color of you. The green shadowed trance of the water Is splintered to little white-tasseled awakenings By the beat of long black oars. So do your words cut the massed smoothness of thoughts of you. Split, brown-blue clouds press into each-other Over hills dressed in mute, clinging haze. So do my thoughts slowly form over the draped mystery of you.

Pebbles, that gleam dully, white, faint ochre, drab green: mosaic under pale sliding water.

Foam; mobile crests leaping, sinking: thin fingers grasping round cold rocks.

Pines, white ash-trees, black-thorns, winter grass, mirrored trembling in you, O vagrant, bending away from you and towards you: hesitating, importunate lovers.

Small blue waves straining to meet, never touching, always elusive: mocking, half-virginal lips.

Here by the pastures of Hybla Dreameth in azure stillness Daphne, a maiden. Her throat was softer than light and honey-haunted.

Here by the foaming sky with cloud-capped horses, I, a maiden, lie by the windy ocean, Dreaming of quiet waters Guarded by willows.

In the dusk a child sits playing Five-finger exercises Up and down, down and up Jagged notes and even, Down and up, up and down Interminably. About him all unseen In the folds of the shadows Stand the great shades Bach ... Beethoven ... Brahms ... Listening with exquisite attention As to a master.

Oh dancers in yellow!— Tall, saffron-garmented poplars with arms uplifted, Slender-limbed beeches Draped in a modester russet, Chestnuts, walnuts and sassafrasses, And ruffle-skirted maples— Why do ye stand at pause? When will the music begin For you, oh dancers in yellow?

The printed page Whispers vainly In my memory.... The locomotive howls! Limping philosophies Murmur weakly And then are silenced By the laughter of wanderers. The sadness of creeds Dies Under tramps’ ribaldry. And my road-thirst, Avid and aching, Conquers the muttering Of puling scholarship. Let my heart blossom in journeying; And my maw be well stuffed With delectable incident!

Sky Deep blue sky Clouds Thin clouds Drifting drifting Grass Soft cool grass Breeze Soft warm breeze Hands pressing Mouths mingling Love Passion Ecstacy Faintness Calm Resting Sky Deep blue sky Clouds Thin clouds Drifting drifting.

When we were lifted high on the crest of the wave And Passion made you oblivious, I reached above you for a star And caught it. When we sank deep into the trough of the wave And satisfied desire over-flooded you, I reached below you for a pearl And possessed it. You have nothing left from that night But a memory, chained to yourself. I have something left from that night That will one day fill his eyes with star-dust, Measuring the heavens, And tangle his feet in sea-weed, Searching the Ocean. Because of that night A thought stirs in you. It will grow weaker with Time It will be dead when you are dead. Because of that night, A child stirs in me. He will grow stronger with Time He will plant pansies on our graves When we are dead.

My leisure has flowered: a new thing has come into my hands, Time has come. I possess time as though it were a thing. I lie still in the scented grass and the hours come into my hands. They float up as little balloons float from the hands of children,— Like golden, silken spheres sailing high into the air, One by one they mount slow and as fragile as dreams. The hours from my hands go up like kites,— I hold their slender thread, I move it faintly and they sway, Rocking in the clear blue of the sky. They do not return to me, but very gently they vanish.... Somewhere, While I hold their silken, slender thread in my hands. My leisure has come sharp, like a crystal: It glows and is pointed, The poignancy of weapons has come into my leisure. I possess time as though it were a thing. The hours come into my hands like spears— Flashing crystal spars of light That is winged. I seize them as they come to me. I throw the weight of my body Into my stroke and boldly I hurl them into space,—into the heart of my enemy The Stillness who lurks there in the depths of the dark.

Bubbles, mist and visions colored shapes winging against the sky a sip from a brown Venetian glass. Meseems gauze drops are pulled upwards and confetti flung into the past. A fairy queen in a crystal coach opens the door, she beckons, the painted crest looks familiar. Six little men with sticks pass by, one taller than the rest laughs and points at a junkheap of keepsakes. Distant music in the park you and I at the bay window, gossiping neighbors, a cool breeze, old second hand furniture, ice cream and moonlight all painted as in one stroke. Spirals of smoke, crushed tissue paper, colored ribbons and black masks, floor sweepings after a ball— I twirl a flower between thumb and index I feel golden dust on the tip of my nose— a futile occupation yet something has happened.

Upon our heads The oak-leaves fall Like silent benedictions Closing autumn’s gorgeous ritual, And we Upborne by warship Lift our eyes to the altar of distant hills. Beloved How can I know What gods are yours, How can I guess the visions of your spirit, Or hear The silent prayers your heart has said— Only by this I feel Your gods akin to mine, That when our lips have met On this last golden autumn afternoon They have confessed In silence Our kisses were less precious than our dreams. To-day Our passion drowned in beauty We turn away our faces toward the hills Where purple haze, like incense, Spreads its veil.

The wind blows hard No bird is there And the smoke is drowning in the lake. (Dictated at the age of two years and ten months.) When it rains it makes beautiful colors It makes red and blue and white And red and blue stripes on the water And the pier goes out to get the sky. (Dictated at the age of three years and eight months.)

Whom I long since had known, Long since forgotten; Who cast their names behind them like a dream, Like stagnant water spitting Their tasteless souls away; These are the soldiers, The nameless, the changelings, Monstrous with slow tormenting Number, Pestilent with unremitting Machine. Soldiers ... These are they whom I suspected, guilty and glorious, Crouching in my own thought’s background, Released by the whirlwind of fate To move as winds that scream about the Pole, As darkness of sea-depths, As meeting of ice and flame. Priests of the mystic sensual death, When shall they return? When shall they return, broken, from Hell? The fuse of a thousand years has burned: Lord, quicken the groping hands of to-morrow!

You come— black of wing, black of beak, flock on flock— ravenous, cawing. Your cries—arrows— shrill, clamorous, strident, pierce the heart. O wounded reverie on still water, white in faint mist, you spurt red drops. O white swan, shape of magnificent sadness, spread out your wings, flutter white through the air, disperse the black—the raucous.

Thru the dark arches of many nights Your voice has led me, Groping. Across the echoing pavements Of the nights that stretch before me And past the niches Where grotesque doubts Mock me for seeking, I shall follow The impalpable strands of your voice— Like thread fine-spun from melted pearls Drawn singing Thru the darkness, Until at last I shall find you In a deep hollow of that immeasurable rock From which all nights are hewn; And your eyes will bind me forever While your long white fingers caress me. I shall not heed the waiting days As they gutter and die out.

O the true difference!— The sun at last Gilds me again And my face is no more a white stalk of celery But a golden mango And the foot-tracked mud of my heart Is sunk deep down In the blue waters and purified with a scouring Of coral.... Cranes carry peace to the east and the west And joy stands clear by the mangroves, A torch, A flamingo.

The day has come, beloved son— When duty’s call resound, Your father fought, and laurels won He firmly held the ground. Now honor calls you to be true, To the dear flag, red-white-and blue Long may it wave o’er land and sea— Thou sweet land of liberty. I thank the God who gave to me, So true, so brave a son— Who on the field prefers to be, Until the battle’s won. The God on high alone doth know, The torture and the nag— In sacrificing all I own, To help protect the flag. Fare-well dear boy of loyalty, To country and to home— God will reward you royally, Wherever you may roam. And when the war is o’er—Oh joy, How proud I then shall be— To find my darling soldier boy, Come home unscathed to me.