Song for the Last Act

     

Now that I have your face by heart, I look   

Less at its features than its darkening frame   

Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,   

Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook.   

Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease

The lead and marble figures watch the show   

Of yet another summer loath to go

Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read   

In the black chords upon a dulling page   

Music that is not meant for music’s cage,

Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.   

The staves are shuttled over with a stark   

Unprinted silence. In a double dream   

I must spell out the storm, the running stream.   

The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see

The wharves with their great ships and architraves;   

The rigging and the cargo and the slaves

On a strange beach under a broken sky.

O not departure, but a voyage done!

The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps

Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps   

Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

                                     Louise Bogan