Short Poems

AN angel, robed in spotless white,
Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.
Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.
Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.

Oh, is it, then, Utopian
To hope that I may meet a man
Who'll not relate, in accents suave,
The tales of girls he used to have?

De nuit, la nymphe errante à travers le bois sombre
Aperçoit le satyre; et, le fuyant dans l'ombre,
De loin, d'un cri perfide, elle va l'appelant.
Le pied-de-chèvre accourt, sur sa trace volant,
Et dans une eau stagnante, à ses pas opposée,
Tombe, et sa plainte amère excite leur risée.

Some days my thoughts are just cocoons- all cold, and dull and blind,
They hang from dripping branches in the grey woods of my mind;

And other days they drift and shine - such free and flying things!
I find the gold-dust in my hair, left by their brushing wings.

Swift and subtle
The flying shuttle
Crosses the web
And fills the loom,
Leaving for range
Of choice or change
No time, no room.

My answers are inadequate
To those demanding day and date
And ever set a tiny shock
Through strangers asking what's o'clock;
Whose days are spent in whittling rhyme-
What's time to her, or she to Time?

Sunlight through the window
birdsongs catch the morning mist
day dreams taking flight


(Previously published in Borders and Time, March 2000)

Stay, o sweet and do not rise!
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not: it is my heart,
   Because that you and I must part.
   Stay! or else my joys will die
   And perish in their infancy.

I am Day; I bring again
Life and glory, Love and pain:
Awake, arise! from death to death
Through me the World's tale quickeneth.

Awake, Radha, awake,
Calls the parrot and its love.
For how long must you sleep,
Clasped to the heart of your Dark-Stone?
Listen. The dawn has come
And the red shafts of the sun
Are making us shudder.