She pointed out the spot on Macon prairie, Telling my father that she wished to lie there. “And plant, one day, an apple orchard round me, In memory of woman’s first temptation, And man’s first cowardice.” That night, within her bosom, I slept. Before the morning I cried because the breast was cold behind me. Now, when the sky blazes like blue enamel, Brilliant and hard over the blond cornfields, And through the autumn days our wind is blowing Like the creative breath of God Almighty-- Then I rejoice that offended love demanded Such wide retreat, and such self-restitution; Forged an explorer’s will in a frail woman, Asked of her perfect faith and renunciation, Hardships and perils, prophecy and vision, The leadership of kin, and happy ending On the red rolling land of Macon prairie. STREET IN PACKINGTOWN (CHICAGO) In the gray dust before a frail gray shed, By a board fence obscenely chalked in red, A gray creek willow, left from country days, Flickers pallid in the haze. Beside the gutter of the unpaved street, Tin cans and broken glass about his feet, And a brown whisky bottle, singled out For play from prosier crockery strewn about, Twisting a shoestring noose, a Polack’s brat Joylessly torments a cat. His dress, some sister’s cast-off wear, Is rolled to leave his stomach bare. His arms and legs with scratches bleed; He twists the cat and pays no heed. He mauls her neither less nor more Because her claws have raked him sore. His eyes, faint-blue and moody, stare From under a pale shock of hair. Neither resentment nor surprise Lights the desert of those eyes-- To hurt and to be hurt; he knows All he will know on earth, or need to know. But there, beneath his willow tree, His tribal, tutelary tree, The tortured cat across his knee, With hate, perhaps, a threat, maybe, Lithuania looks at me. A SILVER CUP In Venice, Under the Rialto bridge, one summer morning, In a mean shop I bought a silver goblet. It was a place of poor and sordid barter, A damp hole filled with rags and rusty kettles, Fire-tongs and broken grates and mended bellows, And common crockery, coarse in use and fashion. Everything spoke the desperate needs of body, The breaking up and sale of wretched shelters, The frail continuance even of hunger. Misery under all--and that so fleeting! The fight to fill the pots and pans soon over, And then this wretched litter left from living.