Jude

When you tell mama 

you are going to do something great 

she looks at you

as though you were a window 

she were trying to see through, 

and says she hopes you will be good 

instead of great.

When you are five years old 

you spend the day in the Gardens. 

The grass is greener than cabbages, 

and orange lilies

stand up very straight

and will not curtsey to the sun 

when the wind tells them. 

Only pansies bow down very low. 

Pansies make little purple cushions

for queen bees to stand on.

Bees

have brown silk hair on their bodies.

If you are careful 

they will let you stroke them. 

The trees over the marble man 

catch up all the sunbeams

so the shadows have it their way

the shadows swallow him up

like a blue shark.

When you scoop a sunbeam up on your palm

and offer it to the marble man,

he does not notice...

he looks into his stone beard.

... When you do something great

people give you a stone face,

so you do not care any more

when the sun throws gold on you

through leaf-holes the wind makes

in green bushes....

This thought makes me very sad.

  

Jude has eyes like tobacco

with yellow specks on it

and his hair is red as a red orange.

Jude and I

have made a garden in the field

that no one knows about.

We creep in and out

through a little place

where the barbed wire is down.

We lie in the long grass

and crush dandelions

between our two cheeks

till the milk comes out on our faces.

We hold each other tight

and the wind tip-toes all over us

and pelts us with thistle-down.

Jude isn't afraid of shadows

not even of the ones that have eyes in them.

And he can look in the face of the sun 

without blinking at all.

Hush! don't say sun so loud. 

The sun gets angry when you stare at him.

If you peek in his glory-windows 

he spreads into a great white flame

like God out of his Burning Bush... 

till you put your hands up on your face

and tremble like a drop of rain upon a flower 

that some one throws into the fire...

and then 

the sun makes himself small,

the sun swings down out of the sky

littler'n a star,

little as a spark

little as a fierce red spider

on a burning thread...

and then

the light goes out...

shivers into blackened bits....

You hold on to a wall that whirls around

and the gate is a black hole.

You grope your way in like a toad

that's blinded by a stone...

and mama puts on cold wet rags

that get hot soon....

Hush! don't let's talk about the sun.

When you pass by the ditch where Janie is

You run very fast

and look at the other side.

Jude says Janie did love me

only she couldn't forgive me,

and that you can love people very much

and never, never, never forgive them....

so we poked a stick in the bottle-green water.

But only weeds came up

and an old top with the paint washed off.

Jude and I

wave to the new moon

curled right up like one gold hair

on the bald-head sandhill.

Mama peeps out the window and smiles.

She thinks

I am playing with myself...

Run, Jude, run with the wind

but hold my hand tight

or the wind,

looking for some one to play with,

will take me away from you!

Wind with no one to play with

cooees the orange-trees

stay-at-home orange trees,

have to nurse oranges,

greeny-gold.

Wind shouts to the grass

run-away-grass

tugs at its roots,

but the earth holds tight

and the grass falls down

and wind boos over it.

Wind whistles the bees

bees too busy

with taking home stuff out of flowers

won't look back

bees always going somewhere.

Only Jude and I

heads over shoulders

watching all roads at one time

run with the wind,

going to nowhere.

Jude and I

were weeding our garden

when we heard his whip

must have been a new whip

to cut off dandelion-heads at one swing....

He was the kind of boy you knew when you had Celia....

with nice clothes on and curls

crawling about his collar

like little golden slugs,

and his man was leading his horse.

I wish I hadn't run to meet him....

If you hadn't run to meet him

he mightn't have trod on your garden and said:

Get out of my field you dirty little beggar...

he mightn't have struck you with his whip....

How the daisies stared....

I hate daisies

stupid white faces

skinny necks

craning over the grass!

I said It is not your field,

and he struck me again.

But he didn't make me run.

His hand

smelled of sweet soap...

he couldn't shake me off,

but his man did....

Funny how the sky fell down

and turned over and over

like a blue carpet rolling you up,

and the grass caught at your face

it couldn't have been spiteful

it must have been saving itself.

Hot road... silly wind playing with your hair....

The road smelled of horses.

I only got up

when I heard a dray.

Mama has sung ba ba black sheep,

and put a chair with a cloth on it

between me and the light.

But the clock keeps saying:

Dirty little beggar,

dirty little beggar....

Some day

I will get that boy.

I will pull off his arms and legs

and put him in a box

and hide the box

under the bed....

I wonder

will he buzz

when I take him out to look at his body

that will have no arms to whip me?

Mama drew my cot to the window

so I can look at the stars.

I will not look at the stars.

There is a black chimney

throwing up sparks

and one tall flame

like gold hair in a blaze....

I know now

what I shall do....

I will set fire to him

and he will burn up into a tall flame

he will scream into the sky

and sparks will fly out of him 

he will burn and burn...

and his blazing hair

shall light up the world.

Before he hit me

I knew he was going to

I thought about Jude....

I thought if he'd fight...

but he shriveled all up...

he lay down like a fear.

Mama never knew about Jude.

You always wanted to tell her,

but somehow you never did.

You were afraid she'd smile

and say he wasn't real

that he was only a little dream-boy,

because the grass didn't fall down under his feet....

He is fading now....

He is just lines... like a drawing....

You can see mama in between.

When she moves

she rubs some of him out.

 Lola Ridge

(Picture: Dandelions, Claude Monet)