A Pushcart at the Curb Part 8

The road is empty only the swaying tufts of oliveboughs against the fading sky.

Down on the steep hillside a man still follows the yoke of lumbering oxen plowing the heavy crimson-stained soil while the chill silver mists steal up about him.

I stand in the empty road and feel in my arms and thighs the strain of his body as he leans far to one side and wrenches the plow from the furrow, feel my blood throb in time to his slow careful steps as he follows the plow in the furrow.

Red earth giver of all things of the yellow grain and the oil and the wine to all G.o.ds sacred of the fragrant sticks that crackle in the hearth and the crisp swaying gra.s.s that swells to dripping the udders of the cows, of the jessamine the girls stick in their hair when they walk in twos and threes in the moonlight, and of the pallid autumnal crocuses ...

are there no fields yet to plow?

Are there no fields yet to plow where with sweat and straining of muscles good things may be wrung from the earth and brown limbs going home tired through the evening?

_Lanjaron_

VIII

O such a night for scaling garden walls; to push the rose shoots silently aside and pause a moment where the water falls into the fountain, softly troubling the wide bridge of stars tremblingly mirrored there terror-pale and shaking as the real stars shake in crystal fear lest the rustle of silence break with a watchdog's barking.

O to scale the garden wall and fling my life into the bowl of an adventure, stake on the silver dice the past and future forget the odds and lying in the garden sing in time to the flutter of the waiting stars madness of love for the slender ivory white of her body hidden among dark silks where is languidest the attar weighted air.

To drink in one strong jessamine scented draught sadness of flesh, twining madness of the night.

O such a night for scaling garden walls; yet I lie alone in my narrow bed and stare at the blank walls, forever afraid, of a watchdog's barking.

_Granada_

IX

Rain-swelled the clouds of winter drag themselves like purple swine across the plain.

On the trees the leaves hang dripping fast dripping away all the warm glamour all the ceremonial paint of gorgeous bountiful autumn.

The black wet boles are vacant and dead.

Among the trampled leaves already mud rot the husks of the rich nuts. On the hills the snow has frozen the last pale crocuses and the winds have robbed the smell of the thyme.

Down the wet streets of the town from doors where the light spills out orange over the shining irregular cobbles and dances in ripples on gurgling gutters; sounds the zambomba.

In the room beside the slanting street round the tray of glowing coals in their stained blue clothes, dusty with the dust of workshops and factories, the men and boys sit quiet; their large hands dangle idly or rest open on their knees and they talk in soft tired voices.

Crosslegged in a corner a child with brown hands sounds the zambomba.

Outside down the purple street stopping sometimes at a door, breathing deep the heady wine of sunset, stride with clattering steps those to whom the time will never come of work-stiffened unrestless hands.

The rain-swelled clouds of winter roam like a herd of swine over the town and the dark plain.

The wineshops full of shuffling and talk, tanned faces bright eyes, moist lips moulding desires blow breaths of strong wine in the faces of pa.s.sers-by.

There are guards in the storehouse doors where are gathered the rich fruits of autumn, the grain the sweet figs and raisins; sullen blood tingling to madness they stride by who have not reaped.

Sounds the zambomba.

_Albaicin_

X

The train throbs doggedly over the gleaming rails fleeing the light-green flanks of hills dappled with alternate shadow of clouds, fleeing the white froth of orchards, of cl.u.s.ters of apples and cherries in flower, fleeing the wide lush meadows, wealthy with cowslips, and the tramping horses and backward-strained bodies of plowmen, fleeing the gleam of the sky in puddles and glittering waters the train throbs doggedly over the ceaseless rails spurning the verdant grace of April's dainty apparel; so do my desires spurn those things which are behind in hunger of horizons.

_Rapido: Valencia--Barcelona_ _1919--1920_

QUAI DE LA TOURNELLE

I

See how the frail white paG.o.das of blossom stand up on the great green hills of the chestnuts and how the sun has burned the wintry murk and all the stale odor of anguish out of the sky so that the swollen clouds bellying with sail can parade in pomp like white galleons.

And they move the slow plumed clouds above the spidery grey webs of cities above fields full of golden chime of cowslips above warbling woods where the ditches are wistfully patined with primroses pale as the new moon above hills all golden with gorse and gardens frothed to the brim of their grey stone walls with apple bloom, cherry bloom, and the raspberry-stained bloom of peaches and almonds.

So do the plumed clouds sail swelling with satiny pomp of parade towards somewhere far away where in a sparkling silver sea full of little flakes of indigo the great salt waves have heaved and stirred into blossoming of foam, and lifted on the rush of the warm wind towards the gardens and the spring-mad cities of the sh.o.r.e Aphrodite Aphrodite is reborn.

And even in this city park galled with iron rails shrill with the clanging of ironbound wheels on the pavings of the unquiet streets, little children run and dance and sing with spring-madness in the sun, and the frail white paG.o.das of blossom stand up on the great green hills of the chestnuts and all their tiers of tiny gargoyle faces stick out gold and red-striped tongues in derision of the silly things of men.

_Jardin du Luxembourg_

II

The shadows make strange streaks and mottled arabesques of violet on the apricot-tinged walks where the thin sunlight lies like flower-petals.

On the cool wind there is a fragrance indefinable of strawberries crushed in deep woods.

And the flushed sunlight, the wistful patterns of shadow on gravel walks between tall elms and broad-leaved lindens, the stretch of country, yellow and green, full of little particolored houses, and the faint intangible sky, have lumped my soggy misery, like clay in the brown deft hands of a potter, and moulded a song of it.

_Saint Germain-en-Laye_

III

In the dark the river spins, Laughs and ripples never ceasing, Swells to gurgle under arches, Swishes past the bows of barges, in its haste to swirl away From the stone walls of the city That has lamps that weight the eddies Down with snaky silver glitter, As it flies it calls me with it Through the meadows to the sea.

I close the door on it, draw the bolts, Climb the stairs to my silent room; But through the window that swings open Comes again its shuttle-song, Spinning love and night and madness, Madness of the spring at sea.

IV

The streets are full of lilacs lilacs in boys' b.u.t.tonholes lilacs at women's waists; arms full of lilacs, people trail behind them through the moist night long swirls of fragrance, fragrance of gardens fragrance of hedgerows where they have wandered all the May day where the lovers have held each others hands and lavished vermillion kisses under the portent of the swaying plumes of the funereal lilacs.

The streets are full of lilacs that trail long swirls and eddies of fragrance arabesques of fragrance like the arabesques that form and fade in the fleeting ripples of the jade-green river.