died June 1916 <br /> <br />Under your illkempt yellow roses, <br />Delia, today you are younger <br />Than your son. Two and a half decades – <br />The family monument sagged askew, <br />And he overtook you for half-a-life. <br />On the other side of the country, <br />Near the willows by the slow river, <br />Deep in the earth, the white ribs retain <br />The curve of your fervent, careful breast; <br />The fine skull, the ardor of your brain. <br />And in the fingers the memory <br />Of Chopin études, and in the feet <br />Slow waltzes and champagne twosteps sleep. <br />And the white full moon of midsummer, <br />That you watched awake all that last night, <br />Watches history fill the deserts <br />And oceans with corpses once again; <br />And looks in the east window at me, <br />As I move past you to middle age <br />And knowledge past your agony and waste.<br /><br />Kenneth Rexroth<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/delia-rexroth/
