Hazel Hall

I have known hours built like cities,
House on grey house, with streets between
That lead to straggling roads and trail off,
...

It is made of finest linen—
Sheer as wasp-wings;
It is made with a flowing panel
Down the front,
...

Three school-girls pass this way each day:
Two of them go in the fluttery way
Of girls, with all that girlhood buys;
...

Beauty streamed into my hand
In sunlight through a pane of glass;
Now at last I understand
Why suns must pass.
...

I was sewing a seam one day.
Just this way—
Flashing four silver stitches there
With thread, like this, fine as a hair,
...

A footstep sounded from the street...
Listening, I knew of you!
With the good singing of your feet
You came in, too.
...

Many sewing days ago
I cross-stitched on a black satin bag
Two listening macaws.
...

Women who sing themselves to sleep
Lie with their hands at rest,
Locked over them night-long as though to keep
Music against their breast.
...

I am holding up a mirror
to look at life; in my hand-glass
I see a strange, hushed street below me
Where people pass.
...

I like things with roots that know the earth,
Trees whose feet, nimble and brown,
Wander around in the house of their birth
...

THERE is a woman who makes my eye
A place of shadows, as now and then
I see her dimly going by,
...

I have unleashed my hands, like hounds,
And I must not call them back;
They are off with virile bounds
On the hidden quarry's track.
...

A BIRD may curve across the sky-
A feather of dusk, a streak of song;
And save a space and a bird to fly
There may be nothing all day long.
...

Needle, running in and out,
In and out, in and out,
Do you know what you're about,
In and out, in and out?
...

Why do I think of stairways
With a rush of hurt surprise?
Wistful as forgotten love In remembered eyes;
And fitful as the flutter
...

TIPTOEING twilight,
Before you pass,
Bathe light my spirit
As dew bathes grass.
...

I had forgotten the gesture of branches
Suddenly white,
And I had forgotten the fragrance of blossoms
...

Last night when my work was done,
And my estranged hands
Were becoming mutually interested
In such forgotten things as pulses,
...

Here are old things:
Fraying edges,
Ravelling threads;
And here are scraps of new goods,
...