Elegy for Jane
----Theodore Roethke


I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils.
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile.
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her.
And she balanced in the delight of her thought.
A wren, happy, tail into the wind.
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches
The shade sang with her
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing
And the mold sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself
Into such a pure depth
Even a father could not find her
Scraping her cheek against straw
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here
Waiting like a fern, making a spiny shadow
The sides of wet stones cannot console me
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon
Over this damp grave I speak
The words of my love
I, with no rights in this matter
Neither father nor lover.