The Poetry Corner

Sun-Up

By Lola Ridge

(Shadows over a cradle... fire-light craning.... A hand throws something in the fire and a smaller hand runs into the flame and out again, singed and empty.... Shadows settling over a cradle... two hands and a fire.) I CELIA Cherry, cherry, glowing on the hearth, bright red cherry.... When you try to pick up cherry Celia's shriek sticks in you like a pin. :: When God throws hailstones you cuddle in Celia's shawl and press your feet on her belly high up like a stool. When Celia makes umbrella of her hand. Rain falls through big pink spokes of her fingers. When wind blows Celia's gown up off her legs she runs under pillars of the bank - great round pillars of the bank have on white stockings too. :: Celia says my father will bring me a golden bowl. When I think of my father I cannot see him for the big yellow bowl like the moon with two handles he carries in front of him. :: Grandpa, grandpa... (Light all about you... ginger... pouring out of green jars...) You don't believe he has gone away and left his great coat... so you pretend... you see his face up in the ceiling. When you clap your hands and cry, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa, Celia crosses herself. :: It isn't a dream.... It comes again and again.... You hear ivy crying on steeples the flames haven't caught yet and images screaming when they see red light on the lilies on the stained glass window of St. Joseph. The girl with the black eyes holds you tight, and you run... and run past the wild, wild towers... and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet and little frightened dolls shut up in the shops crying... and crying... because no one stops... you spin like a penny thrown out in the street. Then the man clutches her by the hair.... He always clutches her by the hair.... His eyes stick out like spears. You see her pulled-back face and her black, black eyes lit up by the glare.... Then everything goes out. Please God, don't let me dream any more of the girl with the black, black eyes. :: Celia's shadow rocks and rocks... and mama's eyes stare out of the pillow as though she had gone away and the night had come in her place as it comes in empty rooms... you can't bear it - the night threshing about and lashing its tail on its sides as bold as a wolf that isn't afraid - and you scream at her face, that is white as a stone on a grave and pull it around to the light, till the night draws backward... the night that walks alone and goes away without end. Mama says, I am cold, Betty, and shivers. Celia tucks the quilt about her feet, but I run for my little red cloak because red is hot like fire. :: I wish Celia could see the sea climb up on the sky and slide off again... ...Celia saying I'd beg the world with you.... Celia... holding on to the cab... hands wrenched away... wind in the masts... like Celia crying.... Celia never minded if you slapped her when the comb made your hairs ache, but though you rub your cheek against mama's hand she has not said darling since.... Now I will slap her again.... I will bite her hand till it bleeds. It is cool by the port hole. The wet rags of the wind flap in your face. II THE ALLEY Because you are four years old the candle is all dressed up in a new frill. And stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain, (except the big stiff planets too fat to move about much,) and you curtsey back to the stars when no one is looking. You feel sorry for the poor wooden chair that knows it isn't nice to sit on, and no one is sad but mama. You don't like mama to be sad when you are four years old, so you pretend you like the bitter gold-pale tea - you pretend if you don't drink it up pretty quick a little gold-fish will think it is a pond and come and get born in it. :: It's hot in our street and the breeze is a dirty little broom that sweeps dust into our room and bits of paper out of the alley. You are not let to play with the children in the alley But you must be very polite - so you pass them and say good day and when they fling banana skins you fling them back again. :: There is no one to play with and the flies on the window buzz and buzz... ...you can pull out their legs and stick pins in their bodies but still they buzz... and mama says: When Nero was a little boy he caught flies on his mama's window and pulled out their legs and stuck pins in their bodies and nobody loved him. Buzz, blue-bellied flies - buzz, nasty black wheel of mama's machine - you are the biggest fly of all - you have the loudest buzz. I hear you at dawn before the locusts. But I like the picture of the Flood and the little babies getting drowned.... If I were there I would save them, but as I can't save them I like to watch them getting drowned. :: When mama buys of Ling Ho, he smiles very wide and picks her the largest loquots. The greens-man gave her a cabbage and she held it against her black bodice and said what a beautiful green it was and put it on the table as though it had been a flower. But next day we boiled and ate it with salt. It was our dinner. :: Christmas day I found Janie on my pillow. Janie is made of rubber. Her red and blue jacket won't come off. Christmas dinner was green and white chicken and lettuce and peas and drops of oil on the salad smiley and full of light like the gold on the lady's teeth. But mama said politely Thank you, we are dining out. She wouldn't let you take one pea to put in the hole where the whistle was at the back of Janie's head, so Janie should have some dinner So you went to the park with biscuits and black tea in a bottle. :: You feel very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks - till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn't come back? Suppose it were to drop out of the string of white faces like the pearl out of my chain I never found again? :: Mabel minds you while mama is out, she washes while she sings Three blind mice! they all run away from the farmer's wife who cut off their tails with a carving knife - Wind blows out Mabel's sheets, way you blow in a bag before you burst it. Wind has a soapy smell. It's heavier'n sun that lies all over you without any weight and makes you feel happy and crinkly like bubbling water. There's no sun on the empty house - sly-looking house - you can't see in its windows that watch you out of their corners. Perhaps there's a big spider there spinning gray threads over the windows till they look like dead people's faces.... Jimmie says: Jimmie's hair is white as a white mouse. His lashes are gold as mama's wedding ring and his mouth feels cool and smooth like a flower wet with rain. You wouldn't believe Jimmie was different... till he showed you.... :: Blind wet sheets flapping on the lines... sun in your eyes, dark gold sun full of little black spots, you have to blink and blink... round eyes of Jimmie.... Jimmie's blue jumper... blue shadow of wall... all the world holding still as when a clock stops... streets still... people still... no streets... no people... only sky and wall... sun glaring bright as God down at you and Jimmie... shadow like a purple cloth trailing off the wall... Wild wet sheets flapping in the wind... big slippered feet flapping too... big-balloon-face rushing up the alley... houses closing up again... windows looking round... ... Mabel pulls you in the gate and shakes you and tells you not to tell your mama... And you wonder if God has spoiled Jimmie. III MAMA Mama's face is smooth and pale as tea-rose leaves. That ivory oval of aunt Gem you sucked the miniature off had black black hair like mama. :: Pit-it-ty-pat, Mama walks so fast, street lamps jig without bending a leg... lights in the windows play twinkling tunes on crimson and blue bottles like bubbles big as balloons... Faster and faster... and pink light spurts over cakes doing polkas in little white shirts, with cake-princesses in flounced white skirts. Pit-pat - mama walks slower... slower and... slower... Eyes... lamps... stars... acres and acres of stars... bells... and sleepily flapping feet.... You're glad mama walks slow. It's nice to be carried along up high near the stars that look at you with a grave, great look. :: Every night mama sings you to sleep. When she sings, O for the light of thine eyes Dolores, there's a castle on a cliff and the sea roars like lions. It leaps at the castle and the cliff knocks it down but always the sea shakes its flattened head and gets up again. The castle has no roof so the rain spins silvery webs in it, and Dolores' face floats dim and beautiful the way flowers do when they are drowned. Step by white step she goes up the castle stairs, but the stair goes up into the sky and the sky keeps going up too, and none of them ever get there. When mama sings Ba ba black sheep, the stars seem to shine through her voice so everything has to be still, and when she has finished singing her song goes up off the earth, higher and higher... till it is only as big as a tiny silver bird with nothing but moonlight around it. IV BETTY You can see the sandhills from our new room. Butterflies live in the sandhills and lizards and centipedes. If you keep very still lizards will think you a stone and run over your lap. Butterflies' liveries are scarlet and black. They drive chariots in air. People in the chariots are pale as dew - you can see right through them - but the chariots are made of gold of the sun. They go up to heaven and never catch fire. There are green centipedes and brown centipedes and black centipedes, because green and brown and black are the colors in hell's flag. Centipedes have hundreds of feet because it is so far from hell to come up for air. Centipedes do not hurry. They are waiting for the last day when they will creep over the false prophets who will have their hands tied. :: Night calls to the sandhills and gathers them under her. she pushes away cities because their sharp lights hurt her soft breast. Even candles make a sore place when they stick in the night. There are things in the sandhills that no one knows about... they come out at dark when the young snakes play and tell each other secrets in the deaf logs. Sometimes... before rain... when the stars have gone inside... the night comes close to your window and sniffs at the light.... But you must not run away - you must keep your face to the night and walk backward. :: When it rains and you are pulling off flies' legs... mama lets you play houses with Lizzie and Clara. Because you are the Only One - and because Only Ones have to live alone while sisters stay together, Lizzie and Clara give you the dry house and take the one with the leaking roof. Rain like curly hairpins blows on Lizzie and Clara's two heads turned like one head - two mouths spread into one laugh. Lizzie is saying: why don't you want to play - when you feel you'd like to braid the crinkled-silver rain into a shining rope to climb up... and up... and up... into the wet sky and never see any one again. Our gate doesn't hang right. It must have pawed at the wind and gotten a kick as the wind passed over. The sitting sky puffs out a gray smoke and the wind makes a red-striped sound blowing out straight, but our gate drags its foot and whines to itself on one hinge. :: What do you think I've found - two wee knickers of fairy brass, or two gold sovereigns folded up in a bit of green silk, or two gold bugs in little green shirts? If you want to know, you must walk tip-toe so your feet just whisper in the grass - you must carry them careful and very proud, for their stems bleed drops of milk - but Lizzie and Clara shout in glee: Pee-a-bed, pee-a-bed - dandelions! You look in the eyes of grown-up people to see if they feel the way you feel... but they hide inside of themselves, and so you do not find out. Grown-up people say: The stars are bright to-night, but they do not say what you are thinking about stars - not even mama says what you are thinking about stars. This makes you feel very lonely. :: It's strange about stars.... You have to be still when they look at you. They push your song inside of you with their song. Their long silvery rays sink into you and do not hurt. It is good to feel them resting on you like great white birds... and their shining whiteness doesn't burn like the sun - it washes all over you and makes you feel cleaner'n water. :: My doll Janie has no waist and her body is like a tub with feet on it. Sometimes I beat her but I always kiss her afterwards. When I have kissed all the paint off her body I shall tie a ribbon about it so she shan't look shabby. But it must be blue - it mustn't be pink - pink shows the dirt on her face that won't wash off. :: I beat Janie and beat her... but still she smiled... so I scratched her between the eyes with a pin. Now she doesn't love me anymore... she scowls... and scowls... though I've begged her to forgive me and poured sugar in the hole at the back of her head. :: Mama says Janie is a fairy doll and she has forgiven me - that she's gone to the market to buy me some sweets. - Now she's at the door and a little bag tied to her neck - I run to Janie and kiss her all over.... Ah... she is still frowning. I let the sweets drop on the floor - mama has told you a lie. :: Chinaman singing in street: gleen ledd-ish-es, gleen ledd-ish-es - hot sun shining on your face - it must be a new day. But why aren't you happy if it's a new day? Because something has happened... something sad and terrible.... Now I remember... it's Janie. Yesterday I took Janie out and tied my handkerchief over her face and put sand in it and threw her into the ditch down in the black water under the dock leaves... and when mama asked me where Janie was I said I had lost her. :: I'm glad it is night-time so I'll be able to go to sleep and forget all about it.... But mama looks at my tongue and says she will give me senna tea. When you smell the tea you shut your eyes tight and pretend not to hear the soft, cool voice of mama that goes over your forehead like a little wind. And then you lie in the dark and stare... and stare... till the faces come... yellow faces with leering eyes drifting in a greeny mist.... I wonder if Janie sees faces out there... alone in the dark.... I wonder if she has got the handkerchief off or if the water has gone in the hole where the whistle was at the back of her head and drowned her... or if the stars can see her under the dock leaves? :: It's smoky-blue and still over the red road. Wind must be lying down with its tail under it - doesn't even flick off the flies. And you can hear the silence buzzing in the gum trees, the way the angels buzzed when they flew through the cedars of Lebanon with thin gauze wings you could see through. Nice to hear the silence buzzing - till it comes too close and booms in your ears and presses all over you till you scream.... When you scream at the silence it goes to jingling pieces like a silver mirror broken into tiny bits. Perhaps its wings are made of glass - perhaps it lives down in a dark, dark cave and only comes up to warm its wings in the sun.... It's cold in the cave - no matter how you cover yourself up. Little girls sit there dressed in white and the dolls in their arms all have white handkerchiefs over their faces. Their shadows cannot play with them... their shadows lie down at their feet... for the little girls sit stiff as stones with their backs to the mouth of the cave where a little light falls off the wings of the silence when it comes down out of the sun. :: Moon catches the flying fish as they dive in the bay. Flying fish spin over and over slippity-silver into the water. Mom bends over jungles and touches the foreheads of tigers as they pass under openings made by dropped leaves. Tigers stop on the trail of the deer while the moon is on their foreheads - they let the stags go by. Moon is shining strangely on the white palings of the fence. Fence keeps very still... most times it moves a little... everything moves a little though you mayn't know it... but now the little fence wouldn't change places with the great cross that stands so stiff and high with its back to the moon. Moon shining strangely on the white palings of the fence, I am shining too but my light is shut inside of me and can't get out. :: Old house with black windows - blind house begging moonlight to put out the shadows - why do you want so much light? You creak when the wind steps on you - you cough up dust and your beams ache - you know you will soon fall, the moon just pities you! Don't waste yourself moon - come on my bed and play with me. Wrap me up in blue light, you who are cool. I am too hot, I am all alive and the shadows are outside of me. :: There are different kinds of shadows. The blind ones are the shadows of things. These are the tame shadows - they love to play on the wall with you and follow you about like cats and dogs. Sometimes they hiss at you softly like snakes that do not bite, or swish like women's dresses, but if you poke a candle at them they pull in their heads and disappear. But there is a shadow that is not the shadow of a thing... it is a thing itself. When you meet this shadow you must not look at it too long... it grows with your looking at it... till you are all alone with nothing around you... nothing... nothing... nothing... but a shadow with its eyes full of black light. :: There's a shadow in the corner of the shed, crouching, lying in wait... a black coiled shadow, watching... ready to strike... but I mustn't be afraid of it - I mustn't be afraid of anything. Poor evil shadow, the candle would chase it away only she can't get at it. Do you think that every one hates you, shadow with your back to the wall, afraid to lie down and sleep? But I don't hate you. Even the moon means to be kind. She just treads on you as I'd tread on a worm that I didn't see. Don't be afraid of me, shadow. See - I've no light in my hand - nothing to save myself with - yet I walk right up to you - if you'll let me I'll put my arms around you and stroke you softly. Are you surprised I'd put my arms around you? Is it your black black sorrow that nobody loves you? V JUDE When you tell mama you are going to do something great she looks at you as though you were a window she were trying to see through, and says she hopes you will be good instead of great. :: When you are five years old you spend the day in the Gardens. The grass is greener than cabbages, and orange lilies stand up very straight and will not curtsey to the sun when the wind tells them. Only pansies bow down very low. Pansies make little purple cushions for queen bees to stand on. Bees have brown silk hair on their bodies. If you are careful they will let you stroke them. The trees over the marble man catch up all the sunbeams so the shadows have it their way - the shadows swallow him up like a blue shark. When you scoop a sunbeam up on your palm and offer it to the marble man, he does not notice... he looks into his stone beard. ... When you do something great people give you a stone face, so you do not care any more when the sun throws gold on you through leaf-holes the wind makes in green bushes.... This thought makes me very sad. :: Jude has eyes like tobacco with yellow specks on it and his hair is red as a red orange. Jude and I have made a garden in the field that no one knows about. We creep in and out through a little place where the barbed wire is down. We lie in the long grass and crush dandelions between our two cheeks till the milk comes out on our faces. We hold each other tight and the wind tip-toes all over us and pelts us with thistle-down. :: Jude isn't afraid of shadows - not even of the ones 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.