The Earth Turns South/To a Baby, Reaching for the Smoke
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TO A BABY, REACHING FOR THE SMOKE
For Janet
Your gray eyes dance with ecstasy,
A cooing chuckle lifts and purls,
And rose-soft fingers laughingly
Grope, as the slow smoke coils and curls.
A cooing chuckle lifts and purls,
And rose-soft fingers laughingly
Grope, as the slow smoke coils and curls.
Out of my pipe, a spiral mist
You reach and close on, gay with hope
That in your tiny tight-locked fist
It will stay captive. . . . Still you grope,
You reach and close on, gay with hope
That in your tiny tight-locked fist
It will stay captive. . . . Still you grope,
And still it slips, dissolves, eludes
To feathery nothingness—and a new
Pillar of grayness slowly broods
Up from the pipe's bowl, teasing you.
To feathery nothingness—and a new
Pillar of grayness slowly broods
Up from the pipe's bowl, teasing you.
If once those rose-soft fingers turn
And find a solid goal, they gain
Only the soiling pipe, to burn
With reddening memories of pain. . . .
And find a solid goal, they gain
Only the soiling pipe, to burn
With reddening memories of pain. . . .
Endlessly so we strain and grope
To reach some coiling, curling wraith
That circles near—dissolving hope,
Elusive truth, or slipping faith.
To reach some coiling, curling wraith
That circles near—dissolving hope,
Elusive truth, or slipping faith.
And if too eagerly we yearn
To touch the soul of things that are,
We find the touch will soil and burn,
And that its memory is—a scar.
To touch the soul of things that are,
We find the touch will soil and burn,
And that its memory is—a scar.