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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=448066" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Betty</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">You can see the sandhills from our new room.<br>Butterflies<br>live in the sandhills<br>and lizards<br>and centipedes.<br>If you keep very still<br>lizards will think you a stone<br>and run over your lap.<br>Butterflies’ liveries<br>are scarlet and black.<br>They drive chariots in air.<br>People in the chariots<br>are pale as dew—<br>you can see right through them—<br>but the chariots<br>are made of gold of the sun.<br>They go up to heaven<br>and never catch fire.<br>There are green centipedes<br>and brown centipedes<br>and black centipedes,<br>because green and brown and black<br>are the colors in hell’s flag.<br>Centipedes<br>have hundreds of feet<br>because it is so far from hell<br>to come up for air.<br>Centipedes<br>do not hurry.<br>They are waiting for the last day<br>when they will creep over the false prophets<br>who will have their hands tied.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Night calls to the sandhills<br>and gathers them under her.<br>she pushes away cities<br>because their sharp lights<br>hurt her soft breast.<br>Even candles make a sore place<br>when they stick in the night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are things in the sandhills<br>that no one knows about…<br>they come out at dark when the young snakes play<br>and tell each other secrets<br>in the deaf logs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sometimes… before rain…<br>when the stars have gone inside…<br>the night comes close to your window<br>and sniffs at the light….<br>But you must not run away—<br>you must keep your face to the night<br>and walk backward.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">When it rains<br>and you are pulling off flies’ legs…<br>mama lets you play houses<br>with Lizzie and Clara.<br>Because you are the Only One—<br>and because Only Ones have to live alone<br>while sisters stay together,<br>Lizzie and Clara<br>give you the dry house<br>and take the one with the leaking roof.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Rain like curly hairpins<br>blows on Lizzie and Clara’s two heads<br>turned like one head—<br>two mouths<br>spread into one laugh.<br>Lizzie is saying:<br>why don’t you want to play—<br>when you feel you’d like to braid<br>the crinkled-silver rain<br>into a shining rope<br>to climb up… and up… and up… into the wet sky<br>and never see any one again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our gate doesn’t hang right.<br>It must have pawed at the wind<br>and gotten a kick<br>as the wind passed over.<br>The sitting sky<br>puffs out a gray smoke<br>and the wind makes a red-striped sound<br>blowing out straight,<br>but our gate drags its foot<br>and whines to itself on one hinge.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">What do you think I’ve found—<br>two wee knickers of fairy brass,<br>or two gold sovereigns folded up<br>in a bit of green silk,<br>or two gold bugs<br>in little green shirts?<br>If you want to know,<br>you must walk tip-toe<br>so your feet just whisper in the grass—<br>you must carry them careful<br>and very proud,<br>for their stems bleed drops of milk—<br>but Lizzie and Clara shout in glee:<br>Pee-a-bed, pee-a-bed—<br>dandelions!<br>You look in the eyes of grown-up people<br>to see if they feel<br>the way you feel…<br>but they hide inside of themselves,<br>and so you do not find out.<br>Grown-up people say:<br>The stars are bright to-night,<br>but they do not say<br>what you are thinking about stars—<br>not even mama says what you are thinking about stars.<br>This makes you feel very lonely.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It’s strange about stars….<br>You have to be still when they look at you.<br>They push your song inside of you with their song.<br>Their long silvery rays<br>sink into you and do not hurt.<br>It is good to feel them resting on you<br>like great white birds…<br>and their shining whiteness<br>doesn’t burn like the sun—<br>it washes all over you<br>and makes you feel cleaner’n water.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">My doll Janie has no waist<br>and her body is like a tub with feet on it.<br>Sometimes I beat her<br>but I always kiss her afterwards.<br>When I have kissed all the paint off her body<br>I shall tie a ribbon about it<br>so she shan’t look shabby.<br>But it must be blue—<br>it mustn’t be pink—<br>pink shows the dirt on her face<br>that won’t wash off.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I beat Janie<br>and beat her…<br>but still she smiled…<br>so I scratched her between the eyes with a pin.<br>Now she doesn’t love me anymore…<br>she scowls… and scowls…<br>though I’ve begged her to forgive me<br>and poured sugar in the hole at the back of her head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mama says Janie is a fairy doll<br>and she has forgiven me—<br>that she’s gone to the market<br>to buy me some sweets.<br>—Now she’s at the door<br>and a little bag tied to her neck—<br>I run to Janie<br>and kiss her all over….<br>Ah… she is still frowning.<br>I let the sweets drop on the floor—<br>mama<br>has told you a lie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Chinaman<br>singing in street:<br>gleen ledd-ish-es, gleen ledd-ish-es—<br>hot sun<br>shining on your face—<br>it must be a new day.<br>But why aren’t you happy<br>if it’s a new day?<br>Because something has happened…<br>something sad and terrible….<br>Now I remember… it’s Janie.<br>Yesterday<br>I took Janie out<br>and tied my handkerchief over her face<br>and put sand in it<br>and threw her into the ditch<br>down in the black water<br>under the dock leaves…<br>and when mama asked me where Janie was<br>I said I had lost her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I’m glad it is night-time<br>so I’ll be able to go to sleep<br>and forget all about it….<br>But mama looks at my tongue<br>and says she will give me senna tea.<br>When you smell the tea<br>you shut your eyes tight<br>and pretend not to hear<br>the soft, cool voice of mama<br>that goes over your forehead<br>like a little wind.<br>And then you lie in the dark<br>and stare… and stare…<br>till the faces come…<br>yellow faces with leering eyes<br>drifting in a greeny mist….<br>I wonder<br>if Janie sees faces<br>out there… alone in the dark….<br>I wonder<br>if she has got the handkerchief off<br>or if the water has gone in the hole<br>where the whistle was<br>at the back of her head<br>and drowned her…<br>or if the stars<br>can see her under the dock leaves?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It’s smoky-blue and still<br>over the red road.<br>Wind must be lying down with its tail under it—<br>doesn’t even flick off the flies.<br>And you can hear the silence<br>buzzing in the gum trees,<br>the way the angels buzzed<br>when they flew through the cedars of Lebanon<br>with thin gauze wings<br>you could see through.<br>Nice to hear the silence buzzing—<br>till it comes too close<br>and booms in your ears<br>and presses all over you<br>till you scream….<br>When you scream at the silence<br>it goes to jingling pieces<br>like a silver mirror<br>broken into tiny bits.<br>Perhaps its wings are made of glass—<br>perhaps it lives down in a dark, dark cave<br>and only comes up<br>to warm its wings in the sun….<br>It’s cold in the cave—<br>no matter how you cover yourself up.<br>Little girls sit there<br>dressed in white<br>and the dolls in their arms<br>all have white handkerchiefs<br>over their faces.<br>Their shadows cannot play with them…<br>their shadows lie down at their feet…<br>for the little girls sit stiff as stones<br>with their backs to the mouth of the cave<br>where a little light falls off<br>the wings of the silence<br>when it comes down out of the sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Moon catches the flying fish<br>as they dive in the bay.<br>Flying fish<br>spin over and over<br>slippity-silver<br>into the water.<br>Mom bends over jungles<br>and touches the foreheads of tigers<br>as they pass under openings made by dropped leaves.<br>Tigers stop on the trail of the deer<br>while the moon is on their foreheads—<br>they let the stags go by.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Moon is shining strangely<br>on the white palings of the fence.<br>Fence keeps very still…<br>most times it moves a little…<br>everything moves a little<br>though you mayn’t know it…<br>but now the little fence<br>wouldn’t change places with the great cross<br>that stands so stiff and high<br>with its back to the moon.<br>Moon shining strangely<br>on the white palings of the fence,<br>I am shining too<br>but my light is shut inside of me<br>and can’t get out.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Old house with black windows—<br>blind house begging moonlight<br>to put out the shadows—<br>why do you want so much light?<br>You creak when the wind steps on you—<br>you cough up dust<br>and your beams ache—<br>you know you will soon fall,<br>the moon just pities you!<br>Don’t waste yourself moon—<br>come on my bed and play with me.<br>Wrap me up in blue light,<br>you who are cool.<br>I am too hot,<br>I am all alive<br>and the shadows are outside of me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are different kinds of shadows.<br>The blind ones<br>are the shadows of things.<br>These are the tame shadows—<br>they love to play on the wall with you<br>and follow you about like cats and dogs.<br>Sometimes<br>they hiss at you softly<br>like snakes that do not bite,<br>or swish like women’s dresses,<br>but if you poke a candle at them<br>they pull in their heads and disappear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But there is a shadow<br>that is not the shadow of a thing…<br>it is a thing itself.<br>When you meet this shadow<br>you must not look at it too long…<br>it grows with your looking at it…<br>till you are all alone<br>with nothing around you…<br>nothing… nothing… nothing…<br>but a shadow<br>with its eyes full of black light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"></div><div style="margin:10px 0">There’s a shadow in the corner of the shed,<br>crouching, lying in wait…<br>a black coiled shadow,<br>watching… ready to strike…<br>but I mustn’t be afraid of it—<br>I mustn’t be afraid of anything.<br>Poor evil shadow,<br>the candle would chase it away<br>only she can’t get at it.<br>Do you think that every one hates you,<br>shadow with your back to the wall,<br>afraid to lie down and sleep?<br>But I don’t hate you.<br>Even the moon means to be kind.<br>She just treads on you<br>as I’d tread on a worm that I didn’t see.<br>Don’t be afraid of me, shadow.<br>See—I’ve no light in my hand—<br>nothing to save myself with—<br>yet I walk right up to you—<br>if you’ll let me<br>I’ll put my arms around you<br>and stroke you softly.<br>Are you surprised I’d put my arms around you?<br>Is it your black black sorrow<br>that nobody loves you?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Lola+Ridge">Lola Ridge</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=448066" data-title="Betty de Lola Ridge" data-description="You can see the sandhills from our new room.
Butterflies
live in the sandhills
and lizards
and centipedes.
If you keep very still
lizards will think you a stone
and run over your lap.
Butterflies’ liveries
are scarlet and black.
They drive chari..."></div>
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