Slow Smoke/Angelique
ANGELIQUE
Twenty-one Moons-of-Berries, and Angelique,Nurtured to ripeness in the wild black earthOf St. Hilaire by summer suns and rains,Waxed like a wild goose plum upon the bough,From brimming bud, to blossom, into fruit.Despite the frosts that life had visitedUpon her youth—her father, mother, brothers, allHad vanished with the sickness-on-the-lungs—She struggled to survival into beauty.
At twenty-two she found the will to liveIn a high sweet dream of loveliness to come,A dream of home, of a swinging cradleboardBearing its fretful cargo from a seaOf trouble into the port of cool sleep;Oh, Angelique would mother anything,A homeless cat, a dog, a broken bird.
At twenty-three the rich maturityOf full-blown womanhood revealed itselfIn every rounded line of hip and bosom,In every limb that pulsed with ardent wine. Upon the tree of life she hung, in reachOf the hand of any passing harvester—A ripe wild plum, grown full with amber sapAs thick and clear beneath the billowy skinAs a globe of pure wild honey against the sun,So heavy with life upon the bended twigThat any breeze might shake it from the bough.
But breezes in the parish St. HilaireWere few enough, and harvesters were fewer,What with the lumberjacks away on drivesIn distant logging-camps, and the voyageursTrading for pelts, or out on timber-cruise.Thus Angelique remained upon the branch,Powdered with bloom as any untouched drupe,Until the government dentist, Gene Magruder,Came with the crew of federal engineers.
Magruder was a connoisseur of fruit,Truly a horticulturist of parts—And smooth as darkly quiet water flowingOver a beaver-dam. Oh, he was goodTo contemplate, celestial in the eyesOf guileless Angelique, when mimickingThe moods of heroes in the cinema, He posed for her at evening in the pines,Bathed in a purifying flood of moonlight,—Moonlight that draped him in a spotless robe,And put upon his pallid face the lookOf an acolyte before a glowing candle.More beautiful he was in lonely night,When rippling his fingers on his cedar flute,He stirred to life within a woman's breastA nameless poignant yearning, the wistful willTo mother something, someone—a bird, a fawn,An acolyte before a glowing candle.And when at last, with patch of open throatSilverly throbbing like a mating thrush's,He poured his torrential ardor in a songThat dripped the melancholy of his hunger—Oh, never a thing of throbbing human fleshCould long withstand the beat and break of it!Never a woman but would yield a moan,And clutching at her breast with trembling hands,Sink down upon the earth.
So Angelique!—As when a wild goose plum, mature for harvest,Shaken among the leaves by a flitting thrush,Lets loose its tenuous hold upon the twigAnd drops to earth, a windfall for the world. And if a woman, lonely, heavy with seed,And hungry for a moment of romance,Assured of the fulfilment of a dreamOf swinging cradleboards, and reassuredThat in the Moon-of-Falling-Leaves the curé,Father Bazile, would bind them with the bannsAnd sanctify their evening of delight—If such a woman, in this circumstance,Yield to the law of gravity, what manOf wisdom in the ways of nature will putHis heel on her, or stone her with contempt!So Angelique!—among the grim-lipped pinesThat rim the valley of the Beaverbrook . . .While parish St. Hilaire was dark with sleep . . .When the hollow mocking laughter of a loonEchoed within the silver bell of night. . . .
In the Moon-of-Falling-Leaves, upon the banksOf Beaverbrook, lone Angelique maintainedHer patient vigil, started to the doorWith every coming footfall on the trail,Caught her warm breath with every crackling twig—As, one by one, the frosted maple-blades,Floating their bronze upon the wistful blueOf smoldering autumn, eddied to the sod, Banded their warmth against a long, long snow.When the last leaf sank, and the maple-tree was bare,And never a thrush remained upon the bough,Worn Angelique, grown desolate of hope,Nursing a dream of cradleboard to comeAnd fearful of the thrust of village eyes,Withdrew herself; secluded in a nook—A cabin dark with rambling tanglewood—Safe from the hiss and venom of village talkThat glided, snake-like, on her heels when sheWent forth in day, she gave herself to dreams,Visions of loveliness to come, to-morrow. . . .
In St. Hilaire old Angelique abides,Harried and bruised, a windfall for the world,As any fallen fruit upon the ground,Broken and pocked by the bills of many birds,Under the foot of every passing woman,Under the foot of every passing man.In St. Hilaire the crone drags out her moons,Companioned by the slender souvenirOf a high sweet moment of romance, a seedlingSprung from a dream gone into yesterday.Oh, he is beautiful in the blue of moonlight.