Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WHITE LOVER, by JOY HAUSMANN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WHITE LOVER, by                    
First Line: She was afraid of things too gleaming white
Last Line: At peace beneath a pall like april blossoms.
Subject(s): Fear; Funerals; White (color); Burials


She was afraid of things too gleaming white --
A dogwood tree was more than she could bear --

She cut the hyacinths of pink and purple,
Leaving the white behind her in the garden;
Yet one could find her standing at the window,
Or walking up and down the pale, stripped borders.

She must have feared the thing she loved too much,
Afraid of any passion's mastery,
Knowing that fires within her smouldered, hidden,
Aware what ravages they might accomplish.

So, too, she must have fled from all her lovers,
Her courage drained before candid emotion.
No man was seer enough to guess her secret;
Not one of them possessed her flaming person.

But, on the day we buried her, it snowed;
We bore her through a rain of crystal stars;
She lay caressed by fold on fold of whiteness,
At peace beneath a pall like April blossoms.





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