| |
I THE CACTUS has grown young leaves | |
| One and a half inches long | |
| Since I came to live with it. | |
| Its branches are like the claws of crabs | |
| In a bed of seaweed. | 5 |
| Young rosehued shoots are coming | |
| From the new green leaves. | |
| I have divined their desires. | |
| They would make huge boughs | |
| Of soft green for you and me | 10 |
| To sit under, | |
| And tell each other of ourselves | |
| And of the world. | |
| |
II Outside the wall of this room, | |
| The young tamerisk tree waves | 15 |
| Its feathery grey branches in the wind. | |
| It has sent its coraldust blossoms to the ground. | |
| They were like wafts of smoke from a tepee | |
| In the morning just before the sun | |
| Reaches the desert. | 20 |
| I sat one evening in the moonlight, | |
| Under the tamerisk tree, | |
| And listened to songs from the lips | |
| Of a Mexican boy. | |
| He told me afterward in broken English | 25 |
| The meaning of these songs. | |
| I could have told him a richer meaning. | |
| I could have told him of your presence | |
| Inside the wall of this room. | |
| I told him nothing of your presence. | 30 |
| It is enough the cactus and the tamerisk | |
| are knowing, | |
| And you, and I. | |
| |
