You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?
Heard of, but never seen.
Call it a cottage, if you like,
or a fortress with four walls;
Eden is not better hidden
than the Good Lady’s house.
What doors there are, what gates,
open when and where she bids them;
no path will wend her way,
no wolf prowl, no traveler knock,
but one — the Sun himself, who
each night, bent-backed and ancient,
knocks thrice upon her door
and hobbles slowly in. Then, suddenly,
at the moment his feet touch the threshold,
he springs upright, sprightly as a colt,
glowing like honey in a red glass jar.
Such is the magic of the place, you see,
that Death himself will not enter
unless invited in.

Sometimes the path is beautiful:
ridged with wild roses, leaves
like silver coins in sunlight.
Birds twitter; the river murmurs;
far away, a woman sings.
But, sometimes, the path grows dark.
The rain beats down, the wolves howl
uncanny lullabies.
Sometimes the forest is as silent
as a scream caught in a throat,
or a cold hand
at the nape of a woman’s neck.
Then the traveler holds her cloak close,
mutters curses against the wind,
entreats signposts:
which way to a sharp knife,
a warm fire,
a companion?

Ah, Boston.
The fall, red ivy
on brick walls,
the friends I miss,
one and all.
In London I have lived
one rainy autumn;
In Madrid I have spent
a sunny spring;
In California I have lived
some twenty splendid summers,
but Boston calls to me —
of an autumn, red and gold,
across the sea.

I don’t need a god of love,
but a god of living;
perfection is
irrelevant to earthly matters.
Give me a god
with wind-chapped skin,
callused palms,
eyes like Californian wildfires
and the desert bush burning.
Let his teeth be fresh, sharp
as pine needles.
Give me a goddess
who retains her wildness,
who is dangerous in the way
that I am dangerous
when I forget
(when I remember)
what I am, I am, I am.