When You Were a Little Girl
When you were a little girl
And you went driving with Grandfather,
If it rained, didn’t he braid up the horse’s tail
Binding it round with a bright silver band,
And fasten on the side curtains of the carriage
And pull the rubber “boot” over the dashboard?
And do you remember how the horse’s feet
Went “Plop, plop,” in and out of the mud,
And you felt the mist blow in on your face
When you managed to peer out over the curtain?
And didn’t you snuggle up close to Grandfather
And hug the Fairy Tale book
Which he was going to listen to
When the rain stopped and you lunched
Beside the road?
Didn’t your Grandfather always drive over
To the cheese factory, and bring out
The fresh cheese curd to you?
Can’t you remember the taste, even now?
And sometimes, when it stormed hard, and thundered
And lightened, and the crashing made the horse
Want to run, wouldn’t your Grandfather always say:
“Steady there, now, boy! Steady, boy!” so gently,
That neither you nor the horse were afraid after that
Because Grandfather said everything was all right,
And he knew. And wasn’t your Grandmother
Waiting in the doorway, watching a bit anxiously,
Until you turned into the yard?
Mine was.
Flight
So still lay the city,
So very quietly it slept,
That from high in the west
I heard the honking of geese
Winging southward.
Yearningly I listened
As they swept over,
Yearningly I cried—
O wild things, that I
Could fly as do you!
Then out of the silent darkness,
Like a flying star,
Flashed a plane
With its skyborne humans.
And all of a sudden
I remembered that I, too,
Could take to wings.
Petit Trianon
(Versailles, France)
When the long drawn notes of a bird’s song
Echoes through the trees,
It brings to remembrance the songs
Of the blackbirds at Petit Trianon:
Chiming, reverberating, floating down
From the tops of the tall cedars
As from an invisible, celestial choir.