Three poems from the play (EMMA)

POEM I

When I first sat at your father’s table

And you entered between white curtains

Your hands more like translucent china

Than the bowl they held.

I loved you with a quickening of breath and spirit

That grew as it heard your voice make soft words.

But when you lay white against muslin

With a dead child to wash with tears I loved you more

You smiled and, trembling, whispered —

That you loved me — was I well?

One cold night we drove through rain in haste

In fear

You held the reins and worked beside me in our desperation

I loved you then with a greatness

Beyond all previous passion.

When all the world has screamed at me in my dreams

And made faces as I died — Oh Emma —

You were ever there in those horrible fantasies

Grasping my hand, your face upon my shoulder

Whispering — I love you, I love you.

POEM II

Perhaps when such hours have disappeared

I shall clothe myself in spring

And sing some breeze blown song, alone.

They shall pass and think me brave

As I stand watching something in the distance

That I cannot see.

POEM III

A certain softness, not cool, but like a lover’s breath

Moves across the garden in one slow whisper

And warms remembered springs.

There are the lilacs, expected once with impatient smiles

Now bringing halted tears

Are these dusty flags those that felt his step

Can it be these hands he held and loved to kiss —

In which he laid blue lilacs with such a look of little boy.