48
PARTISAN REVIEW
there, the taste of honey and grapes <;>n my tongue. Singing (like a
drum) singing.
THE TRAMP. There is a future but that future has no future.
I do not wonder what will happen to you, and yet I wonder.
DRUM-MAN. I know what will become of her, I've seen her
life. I see everything but understand nothing. Like the night.
* * *
The tramp curled up in a corner of the truck. Now he was a
white cloud, easily his time would come. Floating, floating, in a sun
that is not conscious he is waiting, waiting. The tramp is not conscious
of anything but the sun and the warmth of it and the moisture of
sleep. Martha and drum-man feel themselves alone, not that it mat–
ters, they needn't be alone, the intimacy of living lives is an also
public thing, beautifully shyly public thing. Boom boom boom, drum–
man beats, lazily alertly beats his drum. Martha approaches (where
did she learn) the booming of her loving was a living thing. Now
boom how he beats, our drum-man, living, the river rises to chal–
lenge the sun, bursts its horizontal bounds, throws the sunlight forth
from within, waters the banks with its sunlight foam. Boom boom
boom, boom boom boom. Furiously, lazily, beating the drum with
his blue and white eyes, with his morning eyes and his straight tall
blond. On Martha's tongue the grapes burst forth in clamorous
bunches purple rich, the bitter skins, the sudden sweet, the sour seeds,
the crushing and the honey. She takes the drum-stick from the drum–
man's hand, o the boom of her breasts and the great bird singing in
her throat and her chest, o the conquering clamor of her thighs and
her breasts, o Martha, our woman
as
she takes our man, how his eyes
beat out and the urge toward the sea. 0 the sun on the pastureland
of Martha's eyes, o the sun on his hair (he is blond inside) and the
rise of the tide and the forward urge of the river in the sun and the
green fields drinking. Boom boom boom, our living hearts beating,
the instant is captured, the moment of flood, the boom of the water,
the river in the sun,
as
it gleams,
as
it sings, how the meadowlands
drink and the boom in breasts and tall blond chest, and the boom
and the boom, and the sun rejoices, and the instant
is
now lived.
Slowly, now, the flood recedes, and the sun shines softly on the
truck. What a peaceful life as the flood recedes and the tired water
is reclaimed by the furrow. The drum-man sits in the joy of comple–
tion, the tenderness and ease. Languidly he regards the drum, the life
in his eyes is satisfied and his heart is quiet like a river in the sun
slowly moves. He lies along the edge of the truck, the end of the
truck where the backflap
is
let down. His lips are like peaches, com–
pleted, now. His teeth are concealed and his smile
is
within
him,
