No More Learning

One of us, pierced in the flank,
dragged himself across the marsh,
he tore at the bay-roots,
lost hold on the crumbling bank--

Another crawled--too late--
for shelter under the cliffs.

I am glad the tide swept you out,
O beloved,
you of all this ghastly host
alone untouched,
your white flesh covered with salt
as with myrrh and burnt iris.

We were hemmed in this place,
so few of us, so few of us to fight
their sure lances,
the straight thrust--effortless
with slight life of muscle and shoulder.

So straight--only we were left,
the four of us--somehow shut off.

And the marsh dragged one back,
and another perished under the cliff,
and the tide swept you out.

Your feet cut steel on the paths,
I followed for the strength
of life and grasp.
I have seen beautiful feet
but never beauty welded with strength.
I marvelled at your height.

You stood almost level
with the lance-bearers
and so slight.

And I wondered as you clasped
your shoulder-strap
at the strength of your wrist
and the turn of your young fingers,
and the lift of your shorn locks,
and the bronze
of your sun-burnt neck.

All of this,
and the curious knee-cap,
fitted above the wrought greaves,
and the sharp muscles of your back
which the tunic could not cover--
the outline
no garment could deface.

I wonder if you knew how I watched,
how I crowded before the spearsmen--
but the gods wanted you,
the gods wanted you back.




HUNTRESS


Come, blunt your spear with us,
our pace is hot
and our bare heels
in the heel-prints--
we stand tense--do you see--
are you already beaten
by the chase?

We lead the pace
for the wind on the hills,
the low hill is spattered
with loose earth--
our feet cut into the crust
as with spears.

We climbed the ploughed land,
dragged the seed from the clefts,
broke the clods with our heels,
whirled with a parched cry
into the woods:

_Can you come,
can you come,
can you follow the hound trail,
can you trample the hot froth?
_

Spring up--sway forward--
follow the quickest one,
aye, though you leave the trail
and drop exhausted at our feet.




GARDEN


I

You are clear
O rose, cut in rock,
hard as the descent of hail.

I could scrape the colour
from the petals
like spilt dye from a rock.

If I could break you
I could break a tree.

If I could stir
I could break a tree--
I could break you.


II

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat--
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.




SEA VIOLET


The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.

The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?

Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light--
frost, a star edges with its fire.




THE CLIFF TEMPLE


I

Great, bright portal,
shelf of rock,
rocks fitted in long ledges,
rocks fitted to dark, to silver granite,
to lighter rock--
clean cut, white against white.

High--high--and no hill-goat
tramples--no mountain-sheep
has set foot on your fine grass;
you lift, you are the world-edge,
pillar for the sky-arch.

The world heaved--
we are next to the sky:
over us, sea-hawks shout,
gulls sweep past--
the terrible breakers are silent
from this place.

Below us, on the rock-edge,
where earth is caught in the fissures
of the jagged cliff,
a small tree stiffens in the gale,
it bends--but its white flowers
are fragrant at this height.

And under and under,
the wind booms:
it whistles, it thunders,
it growls--it presses the grass
beneath its great feet.