A Few Faces from the Crowd

Jack, from the turrets of the town look down

without that usual abstracted frown;

and focusing a sight that penetrates,

like x-ray, human skulls and roofing slates,

tell us what you can see so far below.

1. That girl, whose universe has lately been

a schoolroom bounded by particulars,

investigates the larger

conundrums of dimension and perspective.

Perceptions touch her like a hand.

Her mind's

a pool now rufflled by the first

wind from the world, and her completed body

-not merchandise nor a device, but simply

identical with herself-a question

that has not been answered.

2. Grey at the temples, hands clenched in his pockets,

with his hard eyes and his blue jaw

and ruthless plans for hold-up and assault,

he is a veritable Bogart

to frighten children.

Yet the plans of nations

and instruments of nations

tower above him, and in proper context

he seems a child himself, aimlessly dreaming

of cops and robbers; and his weapons

popgun and paper sword.

3. Old not in years. The white face, hard and sickly,

bore the stigmata of a recent childhood

and a sharp look of sleeplessness affected

often among the poor. His needs were simple,

and violent, and scarcely ever tended.

'Want clung to him as to his parents, always;

like a tame beast, walked at his heels. Even

here in a June crowd, winter hugged his bones.

His world was housefronts, horns, and gusty lamplight

flying on walls and street, and had no end-

the end of his world, somewhere past the gas-tank,

opened, if you should ask him, on more streets.

The housefronts did not change; the traffic roared

in circles; winter was the longest season;

and he could name his village in the city.

-But this was a new thing, an unkind thing,

an ache like January or a bruise.

What was it? In the sunlight and the streamers

flying in the blue wind above his head

and in the turnstile where he did not enter,

something reminded him of a shop-window

he had stared into half a life ago,

and in the window, a round silver platter

piled with ripe oranges.

And now he saw them

again, the gold spheres in the light, and each was

perfect behind the glass and falling snow;

and stared, and for the first time did not, feeling

somewhere within himself a wish to cry.

4. I struggle, not with scepticism in the parish

but against other, deeper traits my people cherish-

(apathy and forgetfulness

I cannot bless) ;

not with doubt,

but with distractions from without.

My people are what they have done and seen;

I counsel them, and their whole childhood comes between.

Easy to say their natural condition is disorder.

Easy to name their misdeeds: gossip, lust or- who knows?-

even murder.

Judgment is harder.

The cause is veiled; but if I can, I must deflect

(and if not, judge) the unpredictable effect.

The circumstances I cannot surmise

fill their whole past-then why must I advise

the weak, the driven, the unhappy, the unwise?

Or find a moral

that might unspeak the irrevocable quarrel?

Yes, why

is the author of the judgment always I,

I, who cannot condone

the child who throws a stone, :

and bless the bomb, aimed by his brother grown?

The labyrinth is black.

Before the slow mind stumbles from the track,

here let the mind turn back;

evoke the vesper voices sweetly choired,

the magic land the Israelites desired,

sleep for the bewildered and the tired;

and seek

an image that creates in those who cannot speak

faith to companion them into the week.

5. Where they walk slowly, slowly,

in the blind crowd together,

the world walks. Where they linger

under the lyric weather,

the golden season lingers.

Their thoughts blend, hers and his,

as sweetly as their fingers.

While sidelong through soft lashes

innocent in their guile

her eyes record the greeting,

the speculative smile

explicit as the day,

and stare back through long lashes

and do not turn away.

6. For a long time, was an intrigue against himself.

He said: For now, I shall run, so. But if I run to meet them?

Always the danger of ambush. No matter. Strange, how

the car drew up to the curb and seven came for me. And

three with axes, pounding the door. Lucky, the bushes

and the window! Shall run, but not too fast; save speed.

Watch; not to relax my guard. An automatic speaks with

a dry sound. There in the trees behind me. Under the

overhanging cliff, stationed. Is the city nearer? And which

are the safest houses? For now, run, so; later, if need be,

crawl.

After the long debauch, the daylight studied him.

He turned from the disordered rooms and lives, and forced his

way into himself. The path was hard. Rebuilt it. Beasts

were afield. Azure invited; chaos of transparent flames

repelled. Streets opened. At first, at the horizon, sky-

lines. Later, cities,

In February, stood at your threshold. Had come from a long

distance, footprints blue in the white snow. Your win-

dowed life square in the round pupils. Stared for a time;

said nothing. Moved away.

He is what he cannot undo. What he possesses.

Sleeping, the white cascades. The rock. The cress crisp in the

dayspring of the voice. The pool. The azure.

He is alone.

And drunk.

And has forgotten secrets that would set him free.

Clark Mills

THE MOLE

The mole goes down the slow dark personal passage-

a haberdasher's sample of wet velvet moving

on fine feet through an earth that only

the gardener and the excavator know.