The Earth Turns South/The Window

by Clement Richardson Wood

THE WINDOW

A window—just one opening from the gloom
Of a drab, faded room,
Its frame painted a chalky white, its panes
Spattered by last week's rains.
A white shade, creased and thinned by wear,
Lets the impartial glare
Of sunlight dull the carpet's green. . . .
An ordinary scene—
Yet, if it could speak, it could unfold
Passion and dirtiness, snapped strands of human fate,
Humdrum things, and beauty wonder-souled,—
Love, and its splendor . . . hate. . . .

Oh, every slightest thing has visioned these:
Each warm-lit window questioning the night,
Each silent road, each noisy alley, might
Speak of all wonders and all mysteries.

Could aught be more usual than what lies without?
. . . Staid vines and creepers, winding in and out
The even picket fence; the glowing grass;
Four straggly rose-slips, with no blur of pink;
Weeds, that shrink
Affrighted, when steps pass;
One burning spray of geranium, a lit torch
That seems to touch and scorch
The blazing air, until its flaming crest
Decays to dusty rest.
Beyond, the hill, lifting its ancient head.
All usual . . . but there is more to be said.

Past it the grocer's boy carries his wares,
Wrapped in its vast affairs:
The scolding that he got for coming late. . . .
Home squabbles . . . and the movies, when he sees them. . . .
Mamie—and the next date. . . .
The teachers pass it—boarders at the place—
Each with drawn, nervous face
From the unending cares that irk and tease them.

No, it has not seen war; though three recruits,
In their stiff, awkward suits,
Apologetically stop, "just passing by,"
For milk, and a piece of pie.
Grandma limps slowly, almost at journey's end.
The prim-lipped minister . . . friend after friend.
Not only people. Here birds meet and woo,
Nest, and then scatter. Flowers bud and bloom,
The ground drenched with their slow perfume,
Flaunting a gaudy red and blue. . . .
So on the scarring road, the hill's stooped crest—
Day's turmoil, night's unrest.

And it will mull here in its shabby gloom
By the dim, faded room,
With frame repainted, new-washed panes,
New curtains, and new stains.
It sees, but it cannot unfold,
Passion and ugliness, snarled strands of human fate,
Casual things, and beauty wonder-souled,
Love, and its birth and death . . . and hate.