MEXICAN ROAD MENDERS

These Mexicans are like the land,
Like images of sand;
Dry as the sage brush, infinitely old,
Brown as the landscape fading into gold,
Colored with foothills,

Smudged with dusty red.
As the car passed them
One held up his weathered head,
Stared at us gently,
Looked across the land

Where his wild mountains darkly cut the sky,
Swore softly at these strangers passing by
And went on shoveling sand. [page 91]

ARIZONA DESERT ROAD

To the sound of wave-like years
The desert palms march on,
Trudging the grey-green wilderness
Under the glittering sun.
Like pigmy footmen pressing,

Through the sombre dusty trails,
Where a cactus shadow is like a cross,
With spikes for the cross’s nails:
And around their feet the sand,
Sparkling and pale and old,

Waits for the laggard sea
That was fierce and young and cold.

Something happens at night;
The sand becomes a wave,
And every form is marching

Back to a secret cave.
Rocks that were red in the sun
Have a voice in the night, and cry,
And the whole thing turns back sea-ward:
The land leans to the sky,

The crooked palms grow crazy,
They whisper and fret and sigh,
And when the moon arises
They taste the tide of the sky,
And it sends them out of their senses,

So they gather in whimpering clusters
With their peaked horns rising high,
A dwarf and his circling friends,
And they argue in whispering voices
Till the moon has passed them by.

For the mist at the foot of the rocks
Is sea-mist, old and sad, [page 92]
And the sand is a glittering wave,
That drives half-creatures mad.
In that terrible sigh for the sea

I feel all earth complain,
I find old forces rising,
I hear a strange refrain,
And I see footmen thronging
Down to an old sea-lane . . .

God knows this ancient desert road
Is more than sun-baked plain! [page 93]

IMITATION

Here at La Jolla,
That precious little jewel,
Where the blue sea rolls in
And paints the agate sand,
The Casa de Mañana might be a Spanish inn

Set in that golden land.

Only, in Spain,
The casements are more faded,
And colors are less bland.
Sometimes an arch is broken,

And ancient days are spoken
Through such a wayside inn,
Where enmities and loves and songs
Run free as wine upon the waiting line
Of tawny sun-washed sand.

But here—
From out the much-carved portal
Of this so perfect door,
Upon the lovely strand,
At any moment may appear

Some lady from Los Angeles,
Whom the good years have stoutened;
A child who smacks of movies;
A merchant prince from Iowa;
A farmer from Missouri . . .

And all the sea is theirs,
They preen them in the sun,
They walk beside the waves,
They break the dream of Spain,
Where people are like music

Set to an old refrain. [page 94]

SOUTHERN LIVE OAK

Circles of green, ringed in a plushy darkness,
Thatching of leaves and raftered branching of boughs,
A fabulous tent,
A dewy, dark bouquet,
Thick with a hundred years,

And silent in the echoing youth
Of this bright, clamorous May.

Leaves that have watched
White-pillared houses rise
And glow and blossom and fade,

Eaves that have overheard
Chatter of Spain and France
And music of English words—
See, I return to you
As to one long beloved.

For in this southern town
That is so strange to me
My vanished ancestors walked up and down.
My grandmother they say,
Was used to driving out Magnolia Way,

And you have called to her, how many a time,
All your bells ringing in a fairy chime,
Just as you do with poignancy today
This younger blood of mine.

What of the whispering past

Caught in the agèd circle of a tree?
If I should stay
Under these branches patiently,
Under these old leaves silently, [page 95]
For one deep night, one day,

Oh, long-loved petals of this vast bouquet,
What would you say to me—
What would you say! [page 96]

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