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From “To the River Beach”
“OTHERS came in this wet orchard,” I say. “Years ago | |
| There were many like the tall woman who comes now, | |
| Avoiding with her head the low swinging boughs; | |
| And they kept the weeds cut better.” Noise of waves; | |
| Wind running through the tree-tops; the speed of salt-tasting | 5 |
| Wind parting the boughs and the weeds about her knees. | |
| I begin to say: “I lived in this place all one year | |
| Before I was grown; and you were that one of them, | |
| The girl nearly grown who stood beside the weed fire | |
| In only a blue dress, and that dirty. The wind | 10 |
| Wrapped it on your body and wound it like fire, | |
| Like a fire in grass. You were that one who cried | |
| That she was eating wind. You had a red mouth, | |
| You had a red mouth, your short hair wound over your face | |
| As the flame did around your legs. Thin girl, | 15 |
| Sharp-voiced in the smoke, screaming loud as a hawk, | |
| ‘The smoke follows the beauty!’ There was a young man | |
With you, I forget his name.”
“Are you that brother, | |
| The little boy who lay bellied against the grass, | |
| Staring and staring at us, and at the sky | 20 |
| Where birds climbed and looked down? When we left the fire. | |
| You turned your face to the wet grass in the ditch, | |
| And whispered, ‘Like, like, like.’ You would take more words | |
Now, to describe us.”
“Yes, or no words at all.” | |
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| “Well. The waves yonder, the wild crabapple trees | 25 |
| Bring that time to mind quicker. Coarse broad-blade grass, | |
| The cut-grass with three sides, the wild cheat-grass, white | |
| And all broken, with its seed shelled. The tracked ground | |
| And leaf-stems marked my hands and arms; the windfalls | |
| From the wild crabapple trees; a young thorn-tree | 30 |
| Which I tasted the bark of. Taste of salt, the sun. | |
| I could eat the wind then, and salt water. I wanted no fire, | |
| For running in the sun warmed me. No friend need | |
| Ever put a hand on me. I was the beauty. | |
The young man who is dead could have told you.”
Then I: | 35 |
| “I remember your face better than your sisters’ names. | |
The tall girl in the wind of that fire.”
And she again: | |
| “Yes. If I die here, and hang on a fruit-tree | |
| To scare birds from my orchard, you’ll go under me | |
| Thinking that girl died years ago; remember her | 40 |
| Thin legs, wind in her short hair, her shrill voice, | |
| And go between these trees saying, ‘Dead so long,’ | |
| As if she had never grown, for lack of you. | |
| Look at me. This is my orchard; and these are her hands; | |
| My mouth is the mouth you remember, red or not red.” | 45 |
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| Let it be, until she have gone; but I know this: | |
| That you can come to this orchard, O thin girl! | |
| I have seen you run here, and seen the wind burn your face | |
| And burn your young mouth, and blow your dress like fire. | |
| And your spirit passes me when I desire. | 50 |
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