Evening Music
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Effort At Speech Between Two People - Muriel Rukeyser
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit who died in the story
and I crawled under a chair: a pink rabbit: it was my birthday, and a candle burnt
a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.
Oh, grow to know me. I am not happy. I will be open : Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music, like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.
Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now? When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental, fluid: and my widowed aunt played Chopin, and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept. I want now to be close to you. I would link the minutes of my days close, somehow to your days.
I am not happy. I will be open. I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems. There has been fear in my life. Sometimes I speculate On what a tragedy his life was, really.
Take my hand. Fist my mind in your hand. What are you now? When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide, and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward death: if the light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty, if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt, I am unhappy. I am lonely. Speak to me.
I will be open. I think he never loved me: he loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls: he said with a gay mouth: I love you. Grow to know me.
What are you now? If we could touch one another, if these our separate entities could come to grips, clenched like a Chinese puzzle...yesterday I stood in a crowded street that was live with people, and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone. Everyone silent, moving...Take my hand. Speak to me.
Note: This poem came to my mind earlier this morning when I stepped out of my garret to buy milk for breakfast, into a brilliant morning - the "morning shone" - that had a distinct taste of fall, and a street filled with babbling school children, and I suppose with a wish indicated in the refrain of this poem, "Take my hand. Speak to me."
Big Book Of Poetry
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Short Note
Dear Heart, before you suffuse
the world with your pained longing
remember that your memories of Adrienne's
beauty are as close as anyone will get to
in possessing that essential substance,
which is also mistaken for Adrienne.
My Daily Notes
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