The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest. Barbara Guest

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      shining by itself in the blue twilight

      a misunderstood Chalice.

      Grand breaks!

      the forest is growing too high

      (the waves are longer; there is no sound)

      the river has turned from its bed

      rocks have no moss they have plumes

      the chiaroscuro results in serpents.

      Danger!

      where only the poets

      held to the routes by the tender-eyed peasants

      and you painters

      who have drawn those deep lines on the globes

      are without anger and starvation.

      My penitent self sing when you perceive

      it is a kindergarten

      of giants where grapes are growing.

      The wind is southerly.

      You face a park. There are wings in this atmosphere,

      sovereigns who pour forth breezes to refresh

      your atlas.

       Rulers

      have exacted fares, the former slope was icy.

      Now in the Spring air with leaves posed above benches

      the waterfall as hesitant as ever,

      Biography removes her gauntlet

      to cast care from your brow.

In America, the Seasons

      You in the new winter

      stretch forth your hands

      they are needles,

      the sun quivers,

      the landsman translates

      epine.

      False starter,

      regretter of seasons,

      you are tomahawking

      summer

      and

      I incline toward you

      like dead Europe

      wrapped in loose arms.

      Yet on this plain

      who would hesitate?

      seeing the funeral of grass

      the thin afternoon

      plundering the rocks,

      the broken leaves

      and silence incontinently snapped.

      Who hears Piers calling now?

      It is the face

      under the blanket

      we watch.

Belgravia

      I am in love with a man

      Who is more fond of his own house

      Than many interiors which are, of course, less unique,

      But more constructed to the usual sensibility,

      Yet unlike those rooms in which he lives

      Cannot be filled with crystal objects.

      There are embroidered chairs

      Made in Berlin to look like cane, very round

      And light which do not break, but bend

      Ever so slightly, and rock at twilight as the cradle

      Rocks itself if given a slight push and a small

      Tune can be heard when several of the branches creak.

      Many rooms are in his house

      And they can all be used for exercise.

      There are mileposts cut into the marble,

      A block, ten blocks, a mile

      For the one who walks here always thinking,

      Who finds a meaning at the end of a mile

      And wishes to entomb his discoveries.

      I am in love with a man

      Who knows himself better than my youth,

      My experience or my ability

      Trained now to reflect his face

      As rims reflect their glasses,

      Or as mirrors, filigreed as several European

      Capitals have regarded their past

      Of which he is the living representative,

      Who alone is nervous with history.

      I am in love with a man

      In this open house of windows,

      Locks and balconies,

      This man who reflects and considers

      The brokenhearted bears who tumble in the leaves.

      In the garden which thus has escaped all intruders

      There when benches are placed

      Side by side, watching separate entrances,

      As one might plan an audience

      That cannot refrain from turning ever so little

      In other directions and witnessing

      The completion of itself as seen from all sides,

      I am in love with him

      Who only among the invited hastens my speech.

In the Alps

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