Sun-Up and Other Poems | Page 8

that have eyes in
them.
And he can look in the face of the sun
without blinking at all.

Hush! don't say sun so loud.
The sun gets angry when you stare at
him.
If you peek in his glory-windows
he spreads into a great white
flame
like God out of his Burning Bush...
till you put your hands up
on your face
and tremble like a drop of rain upon a flower
that
some one throws into the fire...
and then
the sun makes himself
small,
the sun swings down out of the sky--
littler'n a star,
little as
a spark
little as a fierce red spider
on a burning thread...
and then

the light goes out...
shivers into blackened bits....
You hold on to
a wall that whirls around
and the gate is a black hole.
You grope
your way in like a toad
that's blinded by a stone...
and mama puts
on cold wet rags
that get hot soon....
Hush! don't let's talk about the
sun.
: :
When you pass by the ditch where Janie is
You run very fast
and
look at the other side.
Jude says Janie did love me

only she couldn't
forgive me,
and that you can love people very much
and never,
never, never forgive them....
so we poked a stick in the bottle-green
water.
But only weeds came up
and an old top with the paint
washed off.
: :
Jude and I
wave to the new moon
curled right up like one gold hair


on the bald-head sandhill.
Mama peeps out the window and smiles.

She thinks
I am playing with myself...
Run, Jude, run with the
wind--
but hold my hand tight
or the wind,
looking for some one
to play with,
will take me away from you!
Wind with no one to
play with
cooees the orange-trees--
stay-at-home orange trees,

have to nurse oranges,
greeny-gold.
Wind shouts to the grass--

run-away-grass
tugs at its roots,
but the earth holds tight
and the
grass falls down
and wind boos over it.
Wind whistles the bees--

bees too busy
with taking home stuff out of flowers
won't look
back--
bees always going somewhere.
Only Jude and I--
heads
over shoulders
watching all roads at one time--
run with the wind,

going to nowhere.
: :
Jude and I
were weeding our garden
when we heard his whip--

must have been a new whip
to cut off dandelion-heads at one swing....

He was the kind of boy you knew when you had Celia....
with nice
clothes on and curls
crawling about his collar
like little golden slugs,

and his man was leading his horse.
I wish I hadn't run to meet
him....
If you hadn't run to meet him
he mightn't have trod on your
garden and said:
Get out of my field you dirty little beggar...
he
mightn't have struck you with his whip....

How the daisies stared....

I hate daisies--
stupid white faces--
skinny necks
craning over the
grass!
I said It is not your field,
and he struck me again.
But he
didn't make me run.
His hand
smelled of sweet soap...
he couldn't
shake me off,
but his man did....
Funny--how the sky fell down

and turned over and over
like a blue carpet rolling you up,
and the
grass caught at your face--
it couldn't have been spiteful--
it must
have been saving itself.
Hot road... silly wind playing with your
hair....
The road smelled of horses.
I only got up
when I heard a
dray.
: :

Mama has sung ba ba black sheep,
and put a chair with a cloth on it

between me and the light.
But the clock keeps saying:
Dirty little
beggar,
dirty little beggar....
Some day
I will get that boy.
I will
pull off his arms and legs
and put him in a box
and hide the box

under the bed....
I wonder
will he buzz
when I take him out to
look at his body
that will have no arms to whip me?
Mama drew my cot to the window
so I can look at the stars.
I will
not look at the stars.
There is a black chimney
throwing up sparks

and one tall flame
like gold hair in a blaze....
I know now
what
I shall do....
I will set fire to him
and he will burn up into a tall
flame--
he will scream into the sky
and sparks will fly out of him--

he will burn and burn...
and his blazing hair
shall light up the
world.
: :
Before he hit me--
I knew he was going to--
I thought about Jude....

I thought if he'd fight...
but he shriveled all up...
he lay down like
a fear.
Mama never knew about Jude.
You always wanted to tell her,
but
somehow you never did.
You were afraid she'd smile
and say he
wasn't real--
that he was only a little dream-boy,
because the grass
didn't fall down under his feet....
He is fading now....

He is just
lines... like a drawing....
You can see mama in between.
When she
moves
she rubs some of him out.
MONOLOGUES
JAGUAR
Nasal intonations of light
and clicking tongues...
publicity of
windows
stoning me with pent-up cries...
smells of abattoirs...

smells of long-dead meat.

Some day-end--
while the sand is yet cozy as a blanket
off the
warm body of a squaw,
and the jaguars are out to kill...
with a
blue-black night coming on
and a painted cloud
stalking the first
star--
I shall go alone into the Silence...
the coiled Silence...
where
a cry can run only a little way
and waver and dwindle
and be lost.
And there...
where tiny antlers clinch and strain
as life grapples in a
million avid points,
and threshing