-Eva Willes Wangsgaard

 Scene in Blue

If I could hold you in my arms again,

I'd have no need of sun or moon or stars,

Such lesser lights are meant for common men

And you and I would walk the luminous bars

Of everlasting morning. Should I wake

To feel again your shoulder firm and strong

Against my cheek, my heart would all but break—

Too frail a lute to bear so grand a song.

If I could feel your kiss upon my throat

Or catch familiar love themes in my ear,

Bluebirds would sing and apple blossoms float

Above a hedge of roses all the year;

And grief would be a dull, discarded feather

Lying unruffled in the summer weather.

These will remain when mallards all have flown:

Bold, unleafed branches sketched in charry blue

Enmeshed across a sky of lighter tone

Where little rhinestone stars come twinkling through;

The barn and cottage, purple silhouettes,

Against the snow made azure by the dark;

And pinetrees, many-tiered, like minarets,

Star-pinnacled in winter's lowered arc,

These will remain — and how much more than these!

The tenuous roots beneath the glittering crust,

The hooded buds that knot the barren trees,

And hidden cones and seeds that hold in trust

Enough of life to make a million springs,

Needing but faith in these and northing wings.

 A Summer Day

 Sorrow-Wise

I'd save one day forever if I could:

The sky was blue as hyacinths which bent

Their stars above the  marshes near a wood

Where cattle browsed, releasing spearmint scent.

A flock of blackbirds found a willow tree,

Their bodies ebon leaves on willow lace;

The children left their play and came to me,

And every minnow found a shadowed place.

Then suddenly the black leaves burst in song;

Soprano arias and choral parts

Wove such an opera as can belong

Only to open air and grateful hearts

Bursting with summer and the joy it yields

Over the luscious, mellowing barley fields.

If I could hold you in my arms again,

Beaten forever by a white-toothed flail;

To wait, in seeming changelessness, through grief

The salty hammers swung on every gale.

I know, too, how it feels to be a plover

Lost on a cold and wave-belabored beach,

Bewildered, weary, waiting for a lover

Sucked by the sea forever out of reach.

No part of sun that filled the azure noon

Survives from yesterday to warm tomorrow;

No galaxy, no planet set too soon,

Can prick the fog that settles over sorrow.

But some day when my grief has spent its pain

A ray will strike a beachhead now unknown

And, sorrow-wise, my heart renewed will gain

The strength to walk in dignity alone.

 Second Awakening

 They Know Happiness

Two springtimes in one year were mine,

The year that I went South in March

And watched the wild wisteria vines

Hang amethysts on every arch.

Camellias lavish in corsage

Bedecked my shoulder every day;

Azaleas' purple-red barrage 

Was loud on road and garden way.

Then I returned to lilac scent,

To blossoming apricot and cherry,

To paths where tulip goblets bent

And splashed the rocks with porty and sherry,

And bluebells caroled doubly clear

The second time to greet one year.

No day is ever quite alone,

For every transient moment borrows

From one behind and one before.

Each day has something of its own

Made bright by hopes of its tomorrows

With yesterday locked in its core.

And they know happiness who keep

Some moment that the heart may treasure

From every day as dusk comes down,

Who say their prayers before they sleep

With spirits lifted toward the pleasure

Of sunlight on a new day's crown.

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