Produced by Catherine Daly
Sun-Up and Other Poems
By Lola Ridge
DEDICATION
(To my Mother)
Let me cradle myself back
Into the darkness
Of the half shapes…
Of the cauled beginnings…
Let me stir the attar of unused air,
Elusive… ironically fragrant
As a dead queen's kerchief…
Let me blow the dust from off you…
Resurrect your breath
Lying limp as a fan
In a dead queen's hand.
Thanks is due to THE NEW REPUBLIC, POETRY, A MAGAZINE OF VERSE, PLAY-BOY, and
OTHERS for permission to reprint some of these poems.
CONTENTS
I SUN UP
SUN-UP
II MONOLOGUES
JAGUAR WILD DUCK THE DREAM ALTITUDE COMRADES NOCTURNE CACTUS SEED
III WINDOWS
TIME-STONE TRAIN WINDOW SCANDAL ELECTRICITY SKYSCRAPERS WALL STREET AT NIGHT EAST RIVER
IV SECRETS
INTERIM AFTER STORM SECRETS POTPOURRI THAW
V PORTRAITS
MOTHER E.S. H. O.F.T. E.A.R.
VI SONS OF BELIAL
SONS OF BELIAL
VII REVEILLE
IN HARNESS REVEILLE TO ALEXANDER BERKMAN EMMA GOLDMAN AN OLD WORKMAN TO LARKIN WIND RISING IN THE ALLEYS
SUN-UP
(Shadows over a cradle…
fire-light craning….
A hand
throws something in the fire
and a smaller hand
runs into the flame and out again,
singed and empty….
Shadows
settling over a cradle…
two hands
and a fire.)
I
CELIA
Cherry, cherry, glowing on the hearth, bright red cherry…. When you try to pick up cherry Celia's shriek sticks in you like a pin.
: :
When God throws hailstones you cuddle in Celia's shawl and press your feet on her belly high up like a stool. When Celia makes umbrella of her hand. Rain falls through big pink spokes of her fingers. When wind blows Celia's gown up off her legs she runs under pillars of the bank— great round pillars of the bank have on white stockings too.
: :
Celia says my father will bring me a golden bowl. When I think of my father I cannot see him for the big yellow bowl like the moon with two handles he carries in front of him.
: :
Grandpa, grandpa…
(Light all about you…
ginger… pouring out of green jars…)
You don't believe he has gone away and left his great coat…
so you pretend… you see his face up in the ceiling.
When you clap your hands and cry, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa,
Celia crosses herself.
: :
It isn't a dream…. It comes again and again…. You hear ivy crying on steeples the flames haven't caught yet and images screaming when they see red light on the lilies on the stained glass window of St. Joseph. The girl with the black eyes holds you tight, and you run… and run past the wild, wild tower