postures.txt

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Four Postures of Death
Sidney Keyes
August 1941
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                      I

             DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

He said, "Dance for me," and he said,
"You are too beautiful for the wind
To pick at, or the sun to burn." He said,
"I'm a poor tattered thing, but not unkind
To the sad dancer and the dancing dead."

So I smiled and a slow measure
Mastered my feet and I was happy then.
He said, "My people are gentle as lilies
And in my house there are no men
To wring your young heart with a foolish pleasure."

Because my boy had crossed me in a strange bed
I danced for him and was not afraid.
He said, "You are too beautiful for any man
To finger; you shall stay a maid
For ever in my kingdom and be comforted."

He said, "You shall be my daughter and your feet move
In finer dances, maiden; and the hollow
Halls of my house shall flourish with your singing."
He beckoned and I knew that I must follow
Into the kingdom of no love.

                      II

              DEATH AND THE LOVERS

THE LOVER.  The briars fumble with the moon;
            Far have I come, O far away
            And heartsick sore, my own sweeting.

THE WOMAN.  I stand before the ordered prison room. 
            I can give you no lover's greeting.

THE LOVER.  Wind cracks the clouds, so has my face cracked 
              open.
            With longing all this while, my cold face turning
            Hopelessly to you, like a hound's blind muzzle
            Turned to the moon.

THE WOMAN.  O you bring in a sickly moon 
            And you bring in the rain:
            I will not open, my true love is gone,
            You are his ghost. O never come again.

THE LOVER.  My feet are bleeding, you called me and your face
            Called me a daylong dreary journeying.

THE WOMAN.  Get back, get back into your likely place. 
            The time is past for all this havering.

THE LOVER.  I am a poor boy, pity
            A poor boy on the roads, after your love.

THE WOMAN.  It is too late: seek a storied city
            To house your silliness. Oh, my lost love . . .

DEATH.      Is here behind you. Get you in 
            Out of that muscular salacious wind. 
            Lie down by me: I have an art
            To comfort you and still your restless mind.

THE WOMAN.  I'll close the window; and God send
            We are damned easily . . .

DEATH.      Lie down by me, be gentle: at the end
            Of time, God's quiet hands will kill your fantasy.

THE LOVER.  And strangle me, God's horny fingers, huge
            Fingers of broken cloud, great creaking hands
            That so beset me; briar-nails tear free
            My soul into your wisdom, ravish me
            Since she will not . . .

THE WOMAN.  I am afraid, your hands are strong and cold. 
            Are you my enemy, or my forsaken lover?

DEATH.      Lie soft, lie still. I am sleep's cruel brother.

                      III

               DEATH AND THE LADY

O quietly I wait by the window and my frayed fine hand
Rests in the autumn sunlight.

                              Quietly
The garden trees shake down their crown of leaves.
I have no fear because I have no lover.

I was never acquisitive, never would bind
Any man for myself: so from this brown and golden 
Season of loneliness let him call me softly--
Expecting my compliance, not my welcome.

It may be an hour's play, this waiting for the word--
He will speak softly for they all spoke softly--
Or I may will an autumn with contrition
And waiting for the arm across my shoulders.

Yet he must use no lover's talk to me,
Nor shall his hand be ringed, even with sapphires.
He need not dance, for I have danced with others.
Or let him come as bare and white as winter.

The wind comes and goes.   The leaves and clouds
Fall through the branches. In a dream
Or perhaps a picture, quite without surprise
I turn to meet the question in his eyes.

                    IV

           DEATH AND THE PLOWMAN

THE RIDER.    O don't, don't ever ask me for alms:
              The winter way I'm riding.  Beggar, shun
              My jingling bonebag equipage, beware
              My horse's lifted hoof, the sinewed whip.
              I am the man started a long time since
              To drive into the famous land some call 
              Posterity, some famine, some the valley
              Of bones, valley of bones, valley of dry
              Bones where a critical mind is always searching
              The poor dried marrow for a drop of truth.
              Better for you to ask no alms, my friend.

THE PLOWMAN.  It's only the wind holds my poor bones 
                together,
              So take me with you to that famous land.
              There I might wither, as I'm told some do,
              Out of my rags and boast at last
              The integrated skeleton of truth.

THE RIDER.    The wind creeps sharper there, my hopeful
                friend,
              Than you imagine.  There are crooked trees
              Bent like old fingers; and at Hallowmas
              The Lord calls erring bones to dance a figure.

THE PLOWMAN.  What figure, friend? Why should I fear that 
                dancing?

THE RIDER.    No man may reasonably dance
              That figure, friend. One saw it, one Ezekiel
              Was only spared to tell of it. That valley
              Is no man's proper goal, but some must seek it.

THE PLOWMAN.  I might get clothing there. A skeleton
              Cannot go naked.

THE RIDER.    Naked as the sky
              And lonely as the elements, the man
              Who knows that land. The drypoint artist
                there
              Scrabbles among the wreckage; poets follow
              The hard crevasses, silly as starved gulls
              The scream behind the plow. Don't stop me,
                friend,
              Unless you are of those, and your fool's pride
              Would lure you to that land. . . .

THE PLOWMAN.  I will go with you.
              Better plow-following, this searching wind
              About my bones that this nonentity.

THE RIDER.    Then get you up beside me, gull-brained fool.

BOTH.         We're driving to the famous land some call
              Posterity, some famine, some the valley
              Of bones, valley of bones, valley of dry
              Bones where there is no heat nor hope nor 
                dwelling:
              But cold security, the one and only
              Right of a workless man without a home.