Women have no wilderness in them, <br />They are provident instead, <br />Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts <br />To eat dusty bread. <br /> <br />They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass, <br />They do not hear <br />Snow water going down under culverts <br />Shallow and clear. <br /> <br />They wait, when they should turn to journeys, <br />They stiffen, when they should bend. <br />They use against themselves that benevolence <br />To which no man is friend. <br /> <br />They cannot think of so many crops to a field <br />Or of clean wood cleft by an axe. <br />Their love is an eager meaninglessness <br />Too tense, or too lax. <br /> <br />They hear in every whisper that speaks to them <br />A shout and a cry. <br />As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills <br />They should let it go by. <br />=<br /><br />Louise Bogan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/women-2/
