My wild soul waited on as falcons hover. I beat the reedy fens as I trampled past. In the marsh beneath the moon. And then, with feathery thunder, the bird of my desire Flashing silver fire. High up among the stars I saw his pinions spire. The pale clouds gazed aghast As my falcon stooped upon him, and gripped and held him fast. My soul dropped through the air-with heavenly plunder?- Nay! but a piteous freight, A dark and heavy weight Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled- Gone that ever filled Its guise with glory. O bird that I have killed, Across my rapturous vision when first I dreamed of you! Yet I fling my soul on high with new endeavor, In the marsh beneath the moon A wondrous silver heron its inner darkness fledges! The fens and the sedges. The pledge is still the same for all disastrous pledges, My soul still flies above me for the quarry it shall find! THE HORSE THIEF There he moved, cropping the grass at the purple canyon's lip. white side, For the moon sailed out of a cloud with the wake of a spectral ship. I crouched and I crawled on my belly, my lariat coil looped wide. Dimly and dark the mesas broke on the starry sky. A pall covered every color of their gorgeous glory at noon. I smelt the yucca and mesquite, and stifled my heart's quick cry, And wormed and crawled on my belly to where he moved against the moon! Some Moorish barb was that mustang's sire. His lines were beyond all wonder. From the prick of his ears to the flow of his tail he ached in my throat and eyes. Steel and velvet grace! As the prophet says, God had "clothed his neck with thunder." Oh, marvelous with the drifting cloud he drifted across the skies! And then I was near at hand-crouched, and balanced, and cast the coil; And the moon was smothered in cloud, and the rope through my hands with a rip! But somehow I gripped and clung, with the blood in my brain aboil With a turn round the rugged tree-stump there on the purple canyon's lip. Right into the stars he reared aloft, his red eye rolling and raging. He whirled and sunfished and lashed, and rocked the earth to thunder and flame. He squealed like a regular devil horse. I was haggard and spent and aging Roped clean, but almost storming clear, his fury too fierce to tame. And I cursed myself for a tenderfoot moon-dazzled to play the part; But I was doubly desperate then, with the posse pulled out from town, Or I'd never have tried it. I only knew I must get a mount and a start. The filly had snapped her foreleg short- I had had to shoot her down. So there he struggled and strangled, and I snubbed him around the tree. Nearer, a little nearer-hoofs planted, and lolling tongue Till a sudden slack pitched me backward. He reared right on top of me. Mother of God-that moment! He missed me swung. and up I Somehow, gone daft completely and clawing a bunch of his mane, As he stumbled and tripped in the lariat, there I was-up and astride And cursing for seven counties! And the mustang? Just insane! Crack-bang! went the rope; we cannoned off the tree; then-gods, that ride! A rocket-that's all, a rocket! I dug with my teeth and nails. Why, we never hit even the high spots (though I hardly remember things); But I heard a monstrous booming like a thunder of flapping sails When he spread—well, call me a liar!—when he spread those wings, those wings! So white that my eyes were blinded; thick-feathered and wide unfurled, They beat the air into billows. We sailed, and the earth was gone. Yes, glad as the Greek, and mounted on a horse of the elder gods, With never a magic bridle or a fountain-mirror nigh! My chaps and spurs and holster must have looked it? What's the odds? I'd a leg over lightning and thunder, careering across the sky! And forever streaming before me, fanning my forehead cool, Flowed a mane of molten silver; and just before my thighs (As I gripped his velvet-muscled ribs, while I cursed myself for a fool), The steady pulse of those pinions-their wonderful fall and rise! The bandanna I bought in Bowie blew loose and whipped from my neck. My shirt was stuck to my shoulders and ribboning out behind. The stars were dancing, wheeling and glancing, dipping with smirk and beck. The clouds were flowing, dusking and glowing. We rode a roaring wind. We soared through the silver starlight to knock at the planets' gates. I knew the lines of that Centaur the moment I saw him come! As if some archangel were grinding out the music of the moon. Melody-drunk on the Milky Way, as we swept and soared hilarious, Full in our pathway, sudden he stood-the Centaur of the Stars, Flashing from head and hoofs and breast! I knew him for Sagittarius. He reared, and bent and drew his bow. He crouched as a boxer spars. Flung back on his haunches, weird he loomed; then leapt and the dim void lightened. Old White Wings shied and swerved aside, and fled from the splendor-shod. Through a flashing welter of worlds we charged. I knew why my horse was frightened. He had two faces-a dog's and a man's-that Babylonian god! Also, he followed us real as fear. Ping! went an arrow past. My broncho buck-jumped, humping high. We plunged guess that's all! I lay on the purple canyon's lip, when I opened my eyes at lastStiff and sore and my head like a drum, but I broke no bones in the fall. So you know-and now you may string me up. Such was the way you caught me. Thank you for letting me tell it straight, though you never could greatly care. For I took a horse that wasn't mine! . . . But there's one the heavens brought me, And I'll hang right happy because I know he is waiting for me up there. From creamy muzzle to cannon-bone, by God, he's a peerless wonder! He is steel and velvet and furnace-fire, and death's supremest prize; And never again shall be roped on earth that neck that is "clothed with thunder" String me up, Dave! Go dig my grave! I rode him across the skies! Maxwell Bodenheim THE REAR-PORCHES OF AN APARTMENT-BUILDING A sky that has never known sun, moon or stars, Would have the color of your eyes, O servant-girl, singing of pear-trees in the sun, On the porch above you are two women, Whose faces have the color of brown earth that has never felt rain. The still wet basins of ponds that have been drained Are their eyes. They knit gray rosettes and nibble cakes. And on the top porch are three children Gravely kissing each others' foreheads And an ample nurse with a huge red fan. . . The passing of the afternoon to them Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on brick walls. |