Night on the Island

All night I have slept with you
next to the sea, on the island.
Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep,
between fire and water.

Perhaps very late
our dreams joined
at the top or at the bottom,
up above like branches moved by a common wind,
down below like red roots that touch.

Perhaps your dream
drifted from mine
and through the dark sea
was seeking me
as before,
when you did not yet exist,
when without sighting you
I salted by your side,
and your eyes sought
what now—
bread, wine, love, and anger—
I heap upon you
because you are the cup
that was waiting for the gifts of my life.

I have slept with you
all night long while
the dark earth spins
with the living and the dead,
and on waking suddenly
in the midst of the shadow
my arm encircled your waist.
Neither night nor sleep
could separate us.

I have slept with you
and on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of sea water, of seaweed,
of the depths of your life,
and I received your kiss
moistened by the dawn
as if it came to me
from the sea that surrounds us.

-Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII)

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

Imaginary June

for Susie Schlesinger

Night: wears itself away clouds too dense to skim
over the shear granite rim only a moment before
someone sitting in a mission chair convinced 101%
convinced she could see into her very cells
with her unassisted eyes even into extremophiles
even with the light dispelled until the mind sets sail
into its private interval of oblivion a hand falls from its lap
a pen drops to a carpet a stand of leaves whispers as if
to suggest something tender yet potentially heart robbing

Sequel: to a dream in which faces flare up fuse dissolve
but there is a lot of color before their vanishing and a name
for such phenomena that comes from the belly of a lamb
rather not a lamb anymore from the stomach
of a particular canny but kind and blind-from-birth ewe

-C. D. Wright (1949-2016)

Playgrounds

In summer I am very glad
We children are so small,
For we can see a thousand things
That men can’t see at all.

They don’t know much about the moss
And all the stones they pass:
They never lie and play among
The forests in the grass:

They walk about a long way off;
And, when we’re at the sea,
Let father stoop as best he can
He can’t find things like me.

But, when the snow is on the ground
And all the puddles freeze,
I wish that I were very tall,
High up above the trees…

-Laurence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)

Summer Night, Riverside

In the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled my hair…

The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.

And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom
For June comes back.

To-night what girl
When she goes home,
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This year’s blossoms, clinging in its coils?

-Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)