Would I could release the joy
that bound your heart, repentant, maidenly
to another day—that way lies a dream
cherished, obscured to one candle
lying where no battle-lances ground their teeth:
this battlefield was strewn with snow and strawberries
and one heart laughed away, expired on the field
where lately glory had been shed with tears.
no tears wash your snow-breast
or, in luckless time, describe a woo—
that ate sea-green bitter weeds—a cactus desert.
who strove to measure this field?
who shed blood on this light? a night
of vague desires, writhing within mind
to see hopes recoil with blinded sight:
no words can strike, no warmth assuage the night—
one there is who waits, unbelieving, beside the altar,
dapples, but does not paint,
looks at Van Gogh along railroad tracks,
seems in one shudder to awake in nightmares.
there is no dream that love has not bent
for one who, smiling, caresses earthquakes,
leaves brown hair to dappled leaves
or one red lipstick untouched;
lips that pearled no hollow,
described no rosaries, nor even roses
before the indifferent sculpture weakened
twice, on clock-struck nights—perhaps more;
but no chime awaits me,
no sea-time billow billows far and wide
in sail of her—
believe me in the saints of my tomb
or else warlike graves to hear a knelled mystery:
this, a confabulated wish
strikes at the very splinter which shivered
into stars; one universe is enough.
this my fortune told me
when I, creased with age, dared to tell
seashores from rubies with no lie.
this was no mere ripple in the tide,
or was it?—someone drifted
on a well-stocked raft—who?
where forked rivulets ran to a cave
watching features of the face
for signs of life, when none appeared,
the annointed everlasting this or that
presumed to reach for forgotten trees.
why to tell I cannot tell:
her fate is measured in acorns, like mine;
indeed, like everyone's.
still, a damp climate beckons her yonder
to a still sea, satiated with shore
and trees rebounding in measured life
and no cross to mark the treasure.
but if there was, it would say:
this was no mean fruit—
it was an Egyptian-skirted chance encounter
but no glance gave further information.
—jim sloman, october 26, 1964
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