LOVE IS NOT LOVE IS
A girl three in Massachusetts one noon
Giving a hog a hug
With glee. With you my Emily
Of the graves, I neglect home.
Yet love is Antigone in the cave her grave
Saying, "no fear Haimon dear;
After the last stone and our last breath
Make our tomb, there's only
(Black and warm is our room! )
Sharing in your arms, the scarce air of death."
STONE FOOTING
StDpping my ears to Venus and her doves,
I steal stone footing, find death's carved decree;
I choose this path, the rock which no man loves
Familiar to birds, cast by a barren sea.
Cold on this ridge among the breeding winds,
Starved in the famine forced by Adam's rib,
Here I hold breath, knowing the door of my friends
Is rock, and I am exiled from their tribe.
I put my ear to the ground, I plant my foot
Against grey rock, but wind and seawave smother
The stone's coiled fossil-saga; this navel-knot
Fastens my moving to the great rock-mother.
I would unchain them; but there flies that other
Bearing the sea, and kills me with her shot.
Vernon Watkins
973
