I <br /> <br /> That was a great night we spied upon <br /> See-sawing home, <br /> Singing a hot sweet song to the super-stars <br /> Shuffling off behind the smoke-haze… <br /> Fog-horns sentimentalizing on the river… <br /> Lights dwindling to shining slits <br /> In the wet asphalt… <br /> Purring lights… red and green and golden-whiskered… <br /> Digging daintily pointed claws in the soft mud… <br /> … But you did not know… <br /> As the trains made golden augers <br /> Boring in the darkness… <br /> How my heart kept racing out along the rails, <br /> As a spider runs along a thread <br /> And hauls him in again <br /> To some drawing point… <br /> You did not know <br /> How wild ducks' wings <br /> Itch at dawn… <br /> How at dawn the necks of wild ducks <br /> Arch to the sun <br /> And new-mown air <br /> Trickles sweet in their gullets. <br />II <br /> <br /> As water, cleared of the reflection of a bird <br /> That has lately flown across it, <br /> Yet trembles with the beating of its wings, <br /> So my soul… emptied of the known you… utterly… <br /> Is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song <br /> You might have been…. <br /> 'Twas a great night… <br /> With never a waste look over a shoulder <br /> Curved to the crook of the wind… <br /> And a great word we threw <br /> For memory to play knuckles with… <br /> A word the waters of the world have washed, <br /> Leaving it stark and without smell… <br /> A world that rattles well in emptiness: Good-by.<br /><br />Lola Ridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wild-duck/
