Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Diary Written on Peony Petals

Grace Hazard Conkling

WHEN the wind is soft,

Amigo,

Softer than the mittens on the magnolia buds,

When crocuses have dissolved into air again

And the grass is lonely,

I should like to hear you say,

“Let’s talk.”

I should like to be transfixed by your blue gaze

And to defy your challenge.

Amiga mio,

When the magnolia is quite out

You may come to see me.

It will make your eyes more blue—

The heaped white tree;

At the same time it may help me to resist

Your impudent charm.

It is under your trees I would walk, my friend;

Under your black pines,

Looking out at summer in the meadows

As at a pantomime.

Summer is all very well

For a golden fringe around your forest …

Tell the dark trees to expect me

Afterward …

If I utter human words of longing

They will not heed me.

Inscrutable dreamers above their indigo shadows,

I shall not trouble them

But they will know I am there.

The garden wrestling with dusk

Flings out a gleaming arm

To fend off shadows …

“Night!” she cries,

“Why take away my white foxgloves

When you have the stars?”

I have shining thoughts

That resent darkness.

When foxgloves give up their radiance,

When lilies lean lower under weight of shadows,

I think of you …

My thoughts hold the last light.

“Night!” I cry,

“Why claim my love-thoughts

When you have the moon?”

Now these are dear to me:

Hyacinth with petal-points curled back,

Twigs of willow,

Thin twisting smoke of green

Along the poplars,

Trillium from the tall ravine …

Hyacinth you broke into separate stars …

Willow you plaited into a fillet for my head …

Poplar-leaves you crushed for their spring-breath …

Trillium you read aloud to me

Like a poem …

It is because I am afraid of my heart

That I write about clouds and flowers;

It is because no poem will hold you

That I occupy my mind with rhymes and patterns.

Where am I going?

I am going down the garden to the circle of the seven rose-trees, wherein I shall stand very still and close my eyes and tell myself roses do not exist.

What shall I be doing this afternoon?

I shall be exchanging words with you through an hour cool like green shadow … even words and well-chosen … words of soft color and of pleasing shape … to help me try to believe you do not love me.

I have come back to the dusk

And your flowers in the dusk.

Shadows hide them

But I know they are crimson.

I can lose my thoughts among satin petals

The color of wine.

Home to the dusk

And the sense of you in the dusk …

Distance withholding you … bringing you near …

There is crimson

At the heart of this darkness.

If you were with me

We should need no light

But peonies.

On your way to the carnival in my heart

You kissed my lips …

The whole sea plunged …

Endlessly it poured

In green and shuddering columns past my spirit,

Drowning what I had thought

Myself.

I felt the great waters possess me;

They followed my veins

As they flow through the wavering anemone

Far down the salt pool …

Afterward I remembered

How I swayed and swayed in the strange light,

But you did not let me fall.

Fold down your love closely about me

Like petals of a dark rose;

Hide me in the wonder of it

As in the golden core of a rose …

Wrapped in your proud tenderness,

Petal with petal softly interwoven,

How I shall sing and sing,

Though none may hear!

Yet I shall be heard …

The stirring of wings in your heart

Will be my dreaming,

And your voice uttering yourself

Will be my voice

Forever.