#craning

I RADIANT notes Piercing my narrow-chested room, Beating down through my ceiling— Smeared with unshapen Belly-prints of dreams Drifted out of old smokes— Trillions of icily Peltering notes Out of just one canary; All grown to song, As a plant to its stalk, From too long craning at a sky-light And a square of second-hand blue.

Silvery-strident throat So assiduously serenading me, My brain flinches under The glittering hail of your notes. Were you not safe behind—rats know what thickness of—plastered wall, I might fathom Your golden delirium With throttle of finger and thumb, Shutting valve of bright song.

II But if—away off—on a fork of grassed earth Socketing an inlet of blue water … If canaries—do they sing out of cages?— Flung such luminous notes, They would sink in the spirit, Lie germinal … Housed in the soul as a seed in the earth, To break forth at spring with the crocuses        into young smiles on the mouth … Or, glancing off buoyantly, Radiate notes in one key With the sparkle of rain-drops On the petal of a cactus flower Focusing the just-out sun.

Cactus … why cactus? God … God! Somewhere … away off … Cactus flowers, star-yellow, Ray out of spiked green; And empties of sky Roll you over and over Like a mother her baby in long grass. And only the wind scandal-mongers with gum trees, Pricking multiple leaves at his wondrous story.

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Cactus Seed

Lola Ridge  1873–1941

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