May Sarton

This love is in the eyes, not yet in the heart’s range,

Those who create real havens are not free,

Hold fast, maintain, are rooted, dig deep wells;

Whatever haven human love may be,

There is no freedom without sheltering walls.

And when we imagine wings that come and go

What we see is a house, and a wide-open window.

The House in Winter
The house in winter creaks like a ship.

Snow-locked to the sills and harbored snug

In soft white meadows, it is not asleep.

When icicles pend on the low roof’s lip,

The shifting weight of a slow-motion tug

May slide off sometimes in a crashing slip.

At zero I have heard a nail pop out

From clapboard like a pistol-shot.

All day this ship is sailing out on light:

At dawn we wake to rose and amber meadows,

At noon plunge on across the waves of white,

And, later, when the world becomes too bright,

Tack in among the lengthening blue shadows

To anchor in black-silver pools of night.

Although we do not really come and go,

It feels a long way up and down from zero.

At night I am aware of life aboard.

The scampering presences are often kind,

Leaving under a cushion a seed-hoard,

But I can never open any cupboard

Without a question: what shall I find?

A hard nut in my boot? An apple cored?

The house around me has become an ark

As we go creaking on from dark to dark.

There is a wilder solitude in winter

When every sense is pricked alive and keen

For what may pop or tumble down or splinter.

The light itself, as active as a painter,

Swashes bright flowing banners down

The flat white walls. I stand here like a hunter

On the qui vive, though all appears quite calm,

And feel the silence gather like a storm.

Still Life in Snowstorm
Outside, an April snow,

Beautiful but unwelcome,

Encloses all we know

In a wild whitening gloom,

Thick light without a shadow

That makes the world a room.

Inside, the hearth aflame,

Red roses, and a warm

Chardin, all frame

Some charm within the storm

That turns the enclosed room

Open to worlds of balm.

“Still life with eggs and fish”;

Outside the snow falls fast.

Inside we have our wish,

Redeemed from every past.

Light on a flat brown dish

Holds life so still at last,

Holds life so rich and full,

Beyond all change or chance,

No drop of it can spill.

From this pure eminence

We watch the wild snow fall,

And we are safe for once.

Turn the word “rain”

In our mouths

Like a cool pebble,

As one well after another

Went dry.

In that troubled year

I had not seen luck’s face

Now the blond waving grasses must come down,

And all the tasseled splendor has to yield.