Would I be more than a bubble breaking? Or an ever-widening circle Ceasing at the marge? Would my white bones Be the only white bones Wavering back and forth, back and forth In their depths? PARADOX When face to face we stand And eye to eye, How far apart we are----As far, they say, as God can ever be From what, they say, is Hell. * * * * * But, when we stand Fronting the other, Mile after mile slipping in between, O, close we are, As close as is the shadow to the body, As breath, to life, ............ As kisses are to love. * * * * * YOUR HANDS I love your hands: They are big hands, firm hands, gentle hands; Hair grows on the back near the wrist ... I have seen the nails broken and stained From hard work. And yet, when you touch me, I grow small ....... and quiet ........ ....... And happy .......... If I might only grow small enough To curl up into the hollow of your palm, Your left palm, Curl up, lie close and cling, So that I might know myself always there, ....... Even if you forgot. I WEEP --I weep-- Not as the young do noisily, Not as the aged rustily, But quietly. Drop by drop the great tears Splash upon my hands, And save you saw them shine, You would not know I wept. FOR THE CANDLE LIGHT The sky was blue, so blue that day And each daisy white, so white, O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey And night again be night. * * * * * I _knew_, I _knew_. Well, if night is night, And the grey skies greyly cry, I have in a book for the candle light, A daisy dead and dry. DUSK Twin stars through my purpling pane, The shriveling husk Of a yellowing moon on the wane-- And the dusk. THE PUPPET PLAYER Sometimes it seems as though some puppet player A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin, Sits just beyond the border of our seeing, Twitching the strings with slow sardonic grin. A WINTER TWILIGHT A silence slipping around like death, Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath; One group of trees, lean, naked and cold, Inking their crests ’gainst a sky green-gold; One path that knows where the corn flowers were; Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir; And over it softly leaning down, One star that I loved ere the fields went brown. ANNE SPENCER From Lynchburg, Va., where she lives, Anne Spencer writes, “Mother Nature, February, forty-five years ago forced me on the stage that I, in turn, might assume the rôle of lonely child, happy wife, perplexed mother--and, so far, a twice resentful grandmother. I have no academic honors, nor lodge regalia. I am a Christian by intention, a Methodist by inheritance, and a Baptist by marriage. I write about some of the things I love. But have no civilized articulation for the things I hate. I proudly love being a Negro woman--it’s so involved and interesting. _We_ are the PROBLEM--the great national game of TABOO.”