THE UNDERSTUDIES
When summer smelled of green and stamens thrust
Their fluted horns into the pulsing air,
Under a nave of green the protagonist, crusted
And heavy with musty waddings of the grave,
And sour when all was yearning sweetness, fed his hair.
There underground it grew like rooted grass, it throve
On rust and spores and hung spikes before his stare.
While in the afternoons the lemon lilies spiced among the fern,
And the entangled cabbage rose wrapped his settled mound,
Our hero made ready, and in the lively phosphorous burn
And smolder of the working flesh, a hissing sound
Came to us there on the prickle of grasses, his man's flesh hissed
And called us, but we lay under the trees where the caterpillars fell,
Where the birds clipped and snipped, on the firm rock over his well,
And when the oriole said over and over the same canto, we kissed.
Ruth Stone
UNDER AND ABOVE GROUND CONVERSATIONS
The under and above ground conversations
Which are no worse than at any other period
Are sirens that warn me against
Retreating into silence. A burden birth,
An incomplete circle, speaks throughout
The symphony of generations.
Which station is right for whom?
It
is no matter; others follow and speak.
Whose lament is in the sun?
Whose deceptions lead and finally end?
Answers in oilskins tramp platforms
And cafes talking. Weather, war and Grail.
