Maxwell Bodenheim

YOU are like startled song-wings against my heart

Which flutters like a harp-string wounded

By too much quivering music.

You cover me with a blue dream-robe

Whose silk ripples out like imaged water….

And when, for a moment, you leave,

I am a black sky awaiting its moon.

If I could be moon-light scattered out

Over the blowing dark-blue hair

Of kneeling, flowing crystal breezes

Breathing a litany of pale odors,

If I could be moonlight scattered out

Over the whispers meeting in your heart,

The marriage of our souls would be

No more complete than now.

III

Like a delicately absent-minded guest,

Your smile sometimes lingers after

Your lips are solemn.

And once I saw a tear in your eye

Playing hide-and-go-seek with some leaping, dimpled memory.

These things, to me, are like scattered perfume

Wavering down upon my heart.

The struggle of a smile craving birth

Invades her little weeping faun’s face,

And even makes her tear-drops leap….

She smiles as only grief can smile:

A smile like ashes caught within

A tiny whirlwind of light;

When the light goes, the ashes drape her face

Till even her lips seem grey.

Wave your veils to pallid gavottes,

Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs,

And catch them breathlessly against your breast!

You have prayed too long in your sinking temple—

Night has come, with her fumbling release,

Her moment in which you may play with sad thoughts.

So, wave your veils to pallid gavottes,

Blow them on with dimly-spiced laughs

And catch them breathlessly against your breast.