RODGERS, W.R.


Resurrections

…..

It is always the women who are the Watchers

And keepers of life: they guard our exits

And our entrances. They are both tomb and womb,

End and beginning. Bitterly they bring forth

And bitterly take back the light they gave.

The last to leave and still the first to come,

They circle us like sleep or like the grave.

Earth is their element, and it it lies

The seed and silence of the lighted skies,

The seasons with their fall and slow uprise,

Man with his sight and militant surmise.

It is always the women who are the Watchers

And Wakeners.

…..

The Fountains

Suddenly all the fountains in the park

Opened smoothly their umbrellas of water,

Yet there was none but me to miss or mark

Their peacock show, and so I moved away

Uneasily, like one who at a play

Finds himself all along, and will not stay.