I can’t forget a gaunt grey barn
Like a face without an eye
That kept recurring by field and tarn
Under a Cape Cod sky.
I can’t forget a woman’s hand,
Roughened and scarred by toil
That beckoned clear-eyed children tanned
By sun and wind and soil.
Beauty and hardship, bent and bound
Under the selfsame yoke:
Babies with bare knees plump and round
And stooping women folk.
MARIE LOUISE HERSEY
WREATHS
Red wreaths
Hang in my neighbor’s window,
Green wreaths in my own.
On this day I lost my husband.
On this day you lost your boy.
On this day
Christ was born.
Red wreaths,
Green wreaths
Hang in Our Windows
Red for a bleeding heart,
Green for grave grass.
Mary, mother of Jesus,
Look down and comfort us.
You too knew passion;
You too knew pain.
Comfort us,
Who are not brides of God,
Nor bore God.
On Christmas day
Hang wreaths,
Red for new pain.
Green for spent passion.
CAROLYN HILLMAN
MEMPHIS
Why should I sing of my present? It is nothing to me or you,
Rather I’d dream of Dixie and tie ships on the old bayou!
Rather I’d dream of my packets and the lazy river days,
Rather I’d dream of my levee and the crimson sunset haze,
Rather I’d dream of my triumphs, of the days that are long gone by,
Rather I’d dream of flame-tipped stacks against a saffron sky,
Of level lawns of topaz, of level fields of jade,
Of the rambling pillared mansions that my fathers’ fathers made!
Why should I sing of my present? It is nothing to you or me,
But the river road, the great road, the high road to the sea!
Aye, that is worth the dreaming, aye, that was worth the pain.
Send me back my river, and I shall wake again!
GORDON MALHERBE HILLMAN
SAINT COLUMBKILLE
Columbkille! Saint Columbkille!
You naughty man, Saint Columbkille!
Why did you Finnian’s Psalter take
And secretly a copy make?
You know ’twas such a naughty thing
For one descended from a king
To lock himself into a cell,
’Twas far from right,-you knew it well,—
And copy Finnian’s Psalter through,
Against his will as well you knew.
And then to think a common bird
Should feel such shame, that when he heard
The breathing spy outside your door,
And felt your sainthood was no more,
Should through the crack attack the spy,
And in a rage pluck out his eye,
As if that saintly Irish crane
Would hide from all your Saintship’s stain.
I grieve to think that you did add
Sin unto sin; it is too bad.
For Finnian could not you persuade
To yield the copy that you made,
Until the King in his behalf
Ruled-“To each cow belongs her calf”:
And then you grew so mad you swore
On Erin’s face you’d look no more.
And crossed the sea the Picts to save,
Because you so did misbehave
To dear Saint Finnian: faith, ’twas ill
For you to act so, Columbkille!
A saint you were no doubt, no doubt!
What pity ’twas you were found out!
We know an angel (snob or fool?)
To Kiaran showed a common rule,
An axe, an auger, and a saw,
And told that saint it was the law
Of Heaven that Columbkille should be
Far, far above such saints as he;
For Columbkille contemned a crown,
While he these homely tools laid down,
To serve the Lord, and that the Lord
To each would give his due reward.
I wonder if that angel knew
That Christ these tools had laid down too.
O Columbkille! O Columbkille!
A saint like you must have his will,
But for myself I’d rather be
The common sinner that you see
Than make a crane ashamed of me,
And angels talk such idiocy.