Lola Ridge

From “In Russia”

MAN of the flame-eyes

And mouth with the bitter twist of in-grown laughter,

And little bald man … whose seeming stillness

Is akin to the velocity of a spinning star

Holding its perfect poise—

You two yea-sayers

Beetling over the little deniers,

Two great levelers, building from the earth up, among puttiers and pluggers of rotten piles—

You of the rich life, running in ample measure, amidst life deleted of its old raw fire as earth is deleted of its coal and iron—

You be mighty hunters and keepers,

Trotsky and Lenine—

Yet can you hold … the unconstrainable One

Of the slow and flaming deaths

And multiple resurrections?

Hands, reaching in hundreds of millions,

Backs, straightening under the keeling floor of the world,

Can you hold the great white bird?—

She that sweeps low over the chain-gangs

When they glance up from their stone-breaking

Into morning’s burning gold;

She that goes down into underground cells,

Sending the cool wind of her wings

Through unsevering stone …

And departs, unbeknown, from those who announce her,

Saying: “Lo, she is ours!”

Ah, what a mighty destiny shall be yours,

Should you persuade her—

The Unconstrainable One

Who has slid out of the arms of so many lovers,

Leaving not a feather in their hands!