Honey and Salt (5 page)

 

Or would you say love is a flamingo, with pink

                                                  feathers—

   a soft sunset pink, a sweet gleaming naked

                                                  pink—

   and with enough long pink feathers

   you could make the fan for a fan dance

   and hear a girl telling her lover,

        Speak, my chosen one,

        and give me your wish

        as to what manner of fan dance

        you would have from me

        in the cool of evening

        or the black velvet sheen of midnight.

Could it be love is a flamingo?

 

Or is love a big red apple, and you don't know

whether to bite into it—and you knock on wood

and call off your luck numbers and hold your

                                                  breath—

and you put your teeth into it and get a

                                                  mouthful,

tasting all there is to it,

and whether it's sweet and wild

or a dry mush you want to spit out,

it's something else than you expected.

I'm asking, sir, is love a big red apple?

 

Or maybe love is goofer dust, I hadn't thought

                                                  about that—

for you go to the goofer tree at midnight

and gather the leaves and crush them into fine

                                                  dust,

very fine dust, sir, and when your man sleeps

you sprinkle it in his shoes and he's helpless

and from then on he can't get away from you,

he's snared and tangled and can't keep from

                                                  loving you.

Could goofer dust be the answer?

 

And I've heard some say love is a spy and a

                                                  sneak,

a blatherer, a gabby mouth,

tattling and tittering as it tattles,

and you believe it and take it to your heart

and nurse it like good news,

like heaven-sent news meant for you

and you only—precious little you.

Have you heard love comes creeping and cheating

                                                  like that?

 

***

 

***

 

And are they after beguiling and befoozling us

when they tell us love is a rose, a red red rose,

the mystery of leaves folded over and under

and you can take it to pieces and throw it away

petal by petal into the wind blowing it away

or you can wear it for a soft spot of crimson

in your hair, at your breast,

and you can waltz and tango wearing your sweet

                                                crimson rose

and take it home and lay it on a window sill and see it

wither brown, curl black, and shrivel

until one day you're not careful

and it crackles into dust in your hand

and the wind whisks it whither you know not,

whither you care not,

for it is just one more flame of a rose

that came with its red blush and crimson bloom

and did the best it could with what it had

and nobody wins, nobody loses,

and what's one more rose

when on any street corner

in bright summer mornings

you see them with bunches of roses,

their hands out toward you calling,

        Roses today, fresh roses,

        fresh-cut roses today

        a rose for you sir,

        the ladies like roses,

        now is the time,

        fresh roses sir.

 

And I'm waiting—for days and weeks and months

I've been waiting to see some flower seller,

one of those hawkers of roses,

I've been waiting to hear one of them calling,

        A cabbage with every rose,

        a good sweet cabbage with every rose,

        a head of cabbage for soup or slaw or stew,

        cabbage with the leaves folded over

        and under like a miracle

        and you can eat it and stand up and walk,

        today and today only your last chance

        a head of cabbage with every single lovely rose.

And any time and any day I hear a flower seller so calling

I shall be quick and I shall buy

two roses and two cabbages,

the roses for my lover

and the cabbages for little luckless me.

Or am I wrong—is love a rose you can buy and give away and keep for yourself cabbages, my lord and master, cabbages, kind sir?

I am asking, can you?

 

And it won't help any, it won't get us anywhere,

it won't wipe away what has been

nor hold off what is to be,

if you hear me saying

love is a little white bird

and the flight of it so fast

you can't see it

and you know it's there

only by the faint whirr of its wings

and the hush song coming so low to your ears

you fear it might be silence

and you listen keen and you listen long

and you know it's more than silence

for you get the hush song so lovely

it hurts and cuts into your heart

and what you want is to give more than you can get

and you'd like to write it but it can't be written

and you'd like to sing it but you don't dare try

because the little white bird sings it better than you can

so you listen and while you listen you pray

and after you pray you meditate, then pray more

and one day it's as though a great slow wind

had washed you clean and strong inside and out

and another day it's as though you had gone to sleep

in an early afternoon sunfall and your sleeping heart

dumb and cold as a round polished stone,

and the little white bird's hush song

telling you nothing can harm you,

the days to come can weave in and weave out

and spin their fabrics and designs for you

and nothing can harm you—

unless you change yourself into a thing of harm

nothing can harm you.

 

***

 

***

 

The little white bird is my candidate.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

the little white bird you can't see

though you can hear its hush song

and when you hear that hush song it's love

and I'm ready to swear to it—

you can bring in a stack of affidavits

and I'll swear to it and sign my name

to every last one, so help me God.

And if a fat bumbling shopworn court clerk tells me,

Hold up your hand, I'll hold up my hand all right

and when he bumbles and mumbles to me like I was

one more witness it was work for him to give the oath to,

when he blabs, You do solemnly swear so help you God

that in this cause you will tell the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth,

I 'll say to him, I do, and I 'll say to myself,

And no thanks to you and you could be more

                                                  immaculate

with the name of God.

I am done.

I have finished.

I give you the little white bird—

and my thanks for your hearing me—

        and my prayers for you,

        my deep silent prayers.

I could love you

as dry roots love rain.

I could hold you

as branches in the wind

brandish petals.

Forgive me for speaking

so soon.

 

***

 

***

 

Let your heart look

on white sea spray

and be lonely.

 

Love is a fool star.

 

You and a ring of stars

may mention my name

and then forget me.

 

Love is a fool star.

The blue of morning glory climbs fences and houses.

It is a Gettysburg Union blue setting itself against

a morning haze.

 

The blue of morning glory spots and spatters a rail

fence.

The fence zigzags and the morning glory staggers on

a path of sea-blue, sky-blue, Gettysburg Union blue.

Keep this flower to remember me by.

So she told him.

Keep this, remember me, remember.

Fold this flower where you never forget.

Put me by where time no longer counts.

Then come back to a sure remembering.

 

Night itself, night is one long dark flower.

She said night knows deep rememberings,

All flowers being some kind of remembering

And night itself folding up like

        many smooth dark flowers.

 

Find me like the night finds.

She measured herself so.

Keep me like the night keeps

For I have night deeps in me.

 

Flesh is a doom and a prison.

Flesh jails those only flesh.

        Air speaks nevertheless,

        spray,   fire,   air,

        thin voices beyond capture

        save only in remembering

        the luster of lost stars,

        the reach for a wafer of moon.

 

        Let us talk it over long

        and wear cream gold buttons

        and be proud we have anger and pride together,

        remembering high loveliness hovers in time

        and is made of passing moments.

 

        I have kept high moments.

        They go round and round in me.

Blood is blood and bone is bone.