Dear son, I cannot speak, and yet
I have so much to say to you,
Too much for time and will to net.
Life goes with just this last adieu.
I have so much to say to you,
Far more than I can now convey.
Life goes with just this last adieu
To serve as what I want to say.

Far more than I can now convey,
I love you with a love that yearns
To serve as what I want to say,
Ablaze with joy that bleeds and burns.

I love you with a love that yearns
Too much for time and will to net.
Ablaze with joy that bleeds and burns,
Dear son, I cannot speak, and yet . . .

Your legacy must be both love and fear.
I know that when you died, you feared for me.
The family curse you carried in your breast
Was not a gift you wanted to pass on.
But fear of it, just like my love for you,
Must linger in my heart, unwelcome guest!
And as I weep for your too early death,
I also can hear rumblings of my own.

Ah, Mother! We are linked like paper dolls,
A line of little cutouts in a row.
I see my clearest memories in my mirror
And feel your anguish bloom beneath my breast.

For this, my love for you is more, not less.
In our misfortune there's a common grace:
For me, in that you must have grieved my burden;
For you, in that you must have mine foreseen

Aunt Louise lived only half on Earth,
Unable quite to leave her prior home,
Nestled in a dream, perhaps by birth,
Though loved--ah, loved!--ultimately alone.
Let her be a lesson in delight:
Of cats and restaurants and small routines,
Undaunted by the nearness of the night,
Improvising much with meager means.
She was for us an enigmatic face,
Eloquent of innocence and grace.

My costume’s not from any store

It’s made by my two sisters

They spread the pieces on the floor

And sewed ‘til they got blisters



With leaves and branches head to toe

I’m dressed up like our maples

Both my sisters sure can sew

They used no glue or staples



They put the pieces on to me

Then stitched them all together

A bright and blazing autumn tree

With trunk made out of leather



My outfit’s like a walking zoo

With birds, two squirrels, a spider

My sisters sound so much to do

While I stood drinking cider



My parents call me “timber tot”

I’ve roots on each brown slipper

Oooo! Now I know what we forgot!

--this costume’s got no zipper!

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes,
Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee.
What you been doin', suh -- makin' san' pies?
Look at dat bib -- you's es du'ty ez me.
Look at dat mouf -- dat's merlasses, I bet;
Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's.
Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit,
Bein' so sticky an sweet -- goodness lan's!
Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes,
Who's pappy's darlin' an' who's pappy's chile?
Who is it all de day nevah once tries
Fu' to be cross, er once loses dat smile?
Whah did you git dem teef? My, you's a scamp!
Whah did dat dimple come f'om in yo' chin?
Pappy do' know you -- I b'lieves you's a tramp;
Mammy, dis hyeah's some ol' straggler got in!

Let's th'ow him outen de do' in de san',
We do' want stragglers a-layin' 'roun' hyeah;
Let's gin him 'way to de big buggah-man;
I know he's hidin' erroun' hyeah right neah.
Buggah-man, buggah-man, come in de do',
Hyeah's a bad boy you kin have fu' to eat.
Mammy an' pappy do' want him no mo',
Swaller him down f'om his haid to his feet!

Dah, now, I t'ought dat you'd hug me up close.
Go back, ol' buggah, you sha'n't have dis boy.
He ain't no tramp, ner no straggler, of co'se;
He's pappy's pa'dner an' play-mate an' joy.
Come to you' pallet now -- go to yo' res';
Wisht you could allus know ease an' cleah skies;
Wisht you could stay jes' a chile on my breas'--
Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes!

1
ON the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.

2
From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky—shall devour the stars only in apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge—be patient—watch again another night—the Pleiades
shall
emerge,
They are immortal—all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again—they endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall again shine.

3
Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

Wedding Poems