Read Ebook: Poems of yes and no by Bartlett Elizabeth

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Ebook has 294 lines and 11810 words, and 6 pages

challenge

tell me, in this high land of mountained length where time is green and space big-bellied with fruitful plains rockribbed by corn and bean for simple courage, do you know strength as something earned through bitterness of need in narrow streets and tortured rooms, oh hungry lean

listen, above the winding road come sounds descending on bells, sky voices and wind mixing with the shy four footed ones' cries, what do they tell, can you hear from the grounds of city skyscrapers through the tunnelthinned walls that rail the nervetracked brain with wooden ties

look you, whose eyes are wise with too much seen through doors and windows, in whom the sunlight is confined by steel canyons and arctic nights, here is heart space, here clouds rise between warm currents to open roofs, see how the height of climb and width of free brightens to tropic

taste this, you tongue lovers, you gourmets, you who know the ends for which the palette buds bloom to burst on a thousand sauces, wines, rare meats and molded cheeses, what brew is this, what essence extracted from muds and rooted origins of leaf that taste defines

breathe, ah breathe again, purge out the unclear lungs, the downbent head, smell has other use than multiplies in shop and factory to substitute the sense, no need to fear the pure air here, to hide subtle and obtuse behind the mob's excuse, here the wind blows free

reach out, know touch as up and down, the span of head to heel, thigh to shoulder, each side with rough of bark to blossom, stone to dust, how else but by the feel, the real, can man press nature to his will and impel his pride in shaping to his needs an earth which he can trust

go up, your feet will take you high above streets and buildings to a new position forget the old appointments, you have a more important one with God to measure love not by the scrupled ways of acquisition but freely as the stars that follow and explore

while I live

my love is a hart seeking the waterfall where he may press two lips against its crystal depths--see how he leaps to kiss the imaged mist that bubbles up beneath him--he staggers, kissed

my love is an alpine trail that mountains climb above clouds and timber to heights out of time and measure--no distance there or memory for weak foot and tired brain--but death only

my love is a trumpet sustaining its call to the last clear breath--listen, the interval, out of canyon silences, on the dry wind, the throat of night catches, its echoes are thinned

my love is a dream where childhood fell asleep beckoned by shadows that lengthen as they creep; now she sighs, weeps, losing her way--morning wakes the sleeper and she smiles, her eyes are lakes

odyssey

ah never say the dreams were false that boy and girl were madly bold not time but timeless changes all man and woman we should know

what we dreamed was what we were and could not timeless be two strange wild things in universe too tame for altering

then let them keep without reserve the wings they had prepared and while we walk a humbled earth see them with spirit dare

life I love

life I love who know the heart's unease the mind's disease, the search unending to a blind conclusion

I have gone so many ways towards praise, away from blame to find seclusion

known coldest doubt and passionate release the after peace of countless wars grown tired by their own diffusion

how many changes seen: chance days nights, the grays of violent and tame mixed in the time's confusion

dreamed plans, wished hopes without cease no single piece of life sought without delusion

and yet have loved each coming, going blaze each phase, willed and thrilled to every flame that brightened the illusion

then let me know death as one who foresees breath's end to seize a new beginning through the soul's transfusion

mood on a string

again the after rain and shine of night when mellow yellow patternings of light make rivers run through streets of mirrors bright to where the air brings thought from its seclude as though a silver magnet drew a rood about the mind's internal solitude

then is the darkness gentle to my sight with glossy lamps to toss me into flight and give to sleep the freeness of a kite that after storm can rise in amplitude above the clinging wet still unsubdued to sail in lonely splendor wind pursued

time is a palette

each day has its color radiates each day its own color on the wheel endlessly

and they are wrong who say all colors are gray they are blind or else unimaginatively

well I remember the primary days the reds and yellows and blues those brilliant saturated hues each its own bright self intensively

a day red as a ripe warm plum on the mouth staining chin and blouse with summer while leaves on a red tree flamed in crimson joy shamelessly

and there were other reds for feathers dipped in blood to sign youth's honor on a windless sky running over rooftops most solemneyed earnestly

or red for something velvet deep over quivering flesh and trembling hair stabbing the breath with a wild commotion like coroncitas on a christmas tree ecstatically

a vivid red each time coloring morning to evening canvas of that particular day connecting sleep with sleep in the intimate dye imperishably

yellow was first word for gold then sun and it was always rich like the promise of a wedding ring or shining birthday coin inevitably

yellow was wish more often than anything seen or heard except for the canary my father kept as his own yellow sign pure and unalloyed incorruptibly

mostly it was feeling the evidence and substance in one symbol of perfection and as rare when harsh-cold-rough were there it wasn't yellow changelessly

precious as treasure awarded by the gods to saint and hero like the holy grail the lost chord those unrecoverable legends fabulously

blue was definite less temperamental than red more tangible than yellow like summer sigh or puff of winter air the outlines of dawn to dusk distinguishably

blue was practical and necessary like the blueing used in my mother's wash like smoke water air and sky blue for everything clear and understandable unmistakably

but blue had magic too meaning giant ships and giant fish rockets to the moon and planet shores too big and far away too terribly true incredibly

a glamorous color blue suiting cinderella's glass slipper forget me nots and chinese porcelain and once I found a blue shell so fragile I let it crumble on the sand irretrievably

but even the primary colors are not all the colors and each day has its color each day radiates its own color on the wheel endlessly

and they are wrong who say all colors are gray unable to remember unwilling to separate with desperate impatience unimaginatively

dusk I love

dusk I love who know the morning's light the night's darkness, the black and white of yes and no and all false and true

I have lived with definite so long with wrong and right, with weak and strong with how much undefined dusk by you

for I have seen the between hours when towers grew soft as flowers and cold stones were stemmed in warmest hue

and I have watched a kind gentle grace take place behind the coarser face unloose the many masks old and new

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