Page Four
Q'E SPE TIVES
PAgForPRSETVE
SELECTIONS
. *.By Claire Chamberlain
INSATIETY
Through the clear night window moonlight
softly comes,
And moving music weaves among half-shadows
of the room
Where roses, leaning from their bowl, breathe
fragrance on the darkly gleaming wood
Yet vague wanting haunts the moonlight's
unfelt touch;
A spiral rising yearning underlies the music;
And the fragrance of the roses is but a
ghost-caress to wood untouched by petals.
BOOMERANG
I thought you enigmatical and wise.
With condescension granted few
You taught discernment to my eyes
-Till now they see through even you.
CONTRAST
SUMMER'S END - TOBACCO FARM
My mind was the snail, through slow time
Slowly building its intricate, secret shell.
Yours, like the frost, hung up quick shining icicles
That gave a crystal tinkling as they fell.
DINNER-BOOTH
We should have kept on walking down the street,
past the windows, amid the hurrying people,
To part the usual way, and meet again some
other time for talk of friends and books
and what new things our lives have brought.
You shouldn't have brought me here
Where this soft-lit section of the floating
dining talk and music
Holds and mingles essences of our two selves,
Like some rich blended wine...
More dangerous than touch of hand or lips
Are these suspended moments
When I look deep into the widened darkness of your eyes
And held by the movement of your voice,
Listening to your rarest thoughts,
Am drawn down vistas of your mind almost
beyond recall.
KITCHEN DRAMA
Behind your cigarette you sit and link
Casual words with great felicity.
I, wielding a dishmop at the sink,
Retire under domesticity.
By lantern light and the light of the August moon
We handed the last stick in and left the wagon
The patient mule wrinkled his harassed hide,
Still feeling the sting of sweat and flies
After the sun was down.
The lantern flickered and its oily smoke
Scented the air and touched our gummy hands.
The last barn in, the last leaves
on the stick.
The weary men, mopping their sweating foreheads,
Dropped to the ground and looked at the leaves
above.
Good crop. Only a few leaves rusty,
Speckled and curled with the heat.
Stoop and rub your hands in the sand,
then turn the wagon around
and head for home.
Only a few weeks more
and the sticky mass
will be substantial things
like coats and new shoes.
They're changing books at school
again this year;
shell out another bill for a fountain pen.
The creak of the wagon rhythmic against the night;
Light as early morning, almost, under a pale full moon.
So we ate supper gratefully in quiet,
Then stretched out fully clothed and watched the bats
wheel past.
-Marguerite Graham
I