ISSUE: Winter 1928
It was a night with Winter in the air
after the first of Spring:
it was a night
cloudy and starred:
you seemed to bring
the weather with you into the book-walled room.
Let me remember this against the time
when jealousy and parent joy have followed
one path to the same doom.
The shades were drawn: on table, couch and floor
the lamplight shed its reconciling bloom,
and there was quiet, while our five minds ranged
gaily from books to persons, and back again,
with talk of histories and faiths, of war
and cities,
and the itch in vagrant men
to build themselves a lasting home with words.
There were some pauses and a little laughter,
and pleasant food,
and there was singing after;
but what I would hold fast were the moments that came
with a throb of wings
and went, like hurried birds.
Life sets her snares for such, and that is why
I would recall them in flight, and would recall
your hugely lounging body, your dark face
smiling,
and, inscrutable, intense,
your black unsmiling eyes.
It was a night
cloudy and starred:
you seemed to bring
the weather with you into the room: the breath
of wintry-breasted Spring.
And did you guess
what we dismissed when, with brief hand-clasp, we parted?
This day savors strangely of your restlessness,
though neither of us will be broken-hearted.
