Speak to me.....Take my hand.....What are you now ?
I will tell you all.....I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit
who dies, in the story, and I crawled under a chair:
a pink rabbit:.....it was my birthday, and a candle
burnt a sore spot on my finger, and i was told to be happy.
Oh, grow to know me.....I am not happy.....I will be open.
Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music,
like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me.
There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.
Speak to me.....Take my hand.....What are you now ?
When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental,
fluid: and my widowed aunt played Chopin,
and i bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept.
I want now to be close to you.....I would
link the minutes of my days close, somehow to your days.
I am not happy.....I will be open.
I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems.
There has been fear in my life......Someimes I speculate
On what a tragedy his life was, really.
Take my hand.....Fist my mind in your hand.....What are you now ?
When I was fourteen, i had dreams of suicide,
and I stood at a steep window, a sunset, hoping toward death:
if the light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty,
if the light had not transformed that day, i would have leapt.
I am unhappy.....I am lonely.....Speak to me.
I will be open.....I think he never loved me:
he loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam
that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls:
he said with a gay mouth:I love you.......Grow to know me.
What are you now ?.....If we could touch one another,
if these our separate entities could come to grips,
clenched like a chinese puzzle.....yesterday
I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,
and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.
Everyone silent, moving.....Take my hand.....Speak to me.
<Effort at Speech Between Two People> <Muriel Rukeyser> |
