Slow Smoke/Mrs. Down-Stars
MRS. DOWN-STARS
A Widow and Her Three Daughters:
Seraphine,
Josephine,
Josette.
O winter wind, move gently in this wood;Here lives a gaunt black birch, so old, so worn,So haggard with the snows of sixty wintersThat nothing remains of her save tattered dreams,And, sheltered by her withered arms, the fruitOf an ancient ardor long since gone to dust:Three saplings, shimmering-clean and cherry-red,That loop the forest floor with supple limbs.
O winter storm, though here are three young dancersEager to make a high wild song of winds,To leap upon the dust of yesterday,There is a broken dreamer in this wood Who knows no song save mournful requiem,No step for dancing on a snow-drift saveMacaber click of hollow yellow bonesAnd shuffle of ghostly feet. O January,Shake out no moan from her, and be no urgeTo her unwilling feet; oh, let her sinkGently to earth in her good time and season,To dreams, to dreamlessness; and cover her,Cover her softly with your drift of snow,As tenderly as this gaunt birch let fallHer leaves and bedded down her saplings threeAgainst the coming of a cold, cold winter.