You wear a light summer dress
that covers your body
in flowers
that cling
here to a thigh...
...there a breast
that clings
like music
to the curve of a hip. . .
... the little splash of the hem of a dress
as the garden orchestra plays
seducing the hours
until they relent
and make love to the twilight
like humans make love
the kind of love that is made
when one is in love
and I remember this body
dancing now before me
totally in love
with the music
which
calls it...calls it
I remember this body
stepping delicately
from its shower
sighing with closed eyes
as I dried its wet nakedness
patting it dry
bit by bit
loving the big fluffy towelness of it
here a breast...
... there a hip
pausing
to kiss it
bit by bit
your eyes still closed
(a sigh trembling on your lip)
and I dressing
your body
in the flowers
that now in music
sway before me
offering me
its beauty
as it cuts
through time
in time with the music
a hand elegantly here
hair wildly flying there
as night becomes
morning
your voice nuzzling into my neck:
“Oh, darling...darling! ”
Now, in these early hours
I take off your flowers
scattered across a moonlit floor
kiss
here your breast...
... there a hip
kiss
your lips
for hours & hours
a rose in a vase
still wide awake
stares
until morning
like a holy offering
brings us
dreams and sleep
sleep
&
Dreams
* * *
WRITING...
WHERE OR WHEN
I was 9 when I first heard my first Rodgers & Hart song and I...just burst out crying. It was(and I’ll always remember) . . .MY FUNNY VALENTINE.
It was only the first few notes but that was enough...and then there was the words…and that was more than enough…too much. I couldn’t bear its beauty. I couldn’t bear its sadness. I couldn’t bear its truth... and I couldn’t bear to be without it. I not only loved it but adored it…worshiped it…every note...every word of it. I was glad to be part of the world that this was part of. It was bliss.
My poor old Dad had jumped up, frightened to death... thinking I had been stung to death by a bee or a wasp. He was greatly relieved that no wasp or bee had got me and understood the nature of loving something so much... seeing that it was he who had given this gift to me. Unable to read I had read many beautiful things in the book of my father’s voice. The book of his voice was beautiful to me and I read there willingly. Now, with relief seeping in (“Jaysus, you put the heart crossways in me! ”) he laughed at my childlike explanation:
“I’m crying because it is so beautiful...its beauty hurts me...it hurts my soul! ”
“Ah, Donall son...” he smiled “...the beauty of the world hath made me sad! ”
He was always quoting poetry as if it were his own as if he had made it up on the spot that very moment. It would take me years to untangle what was and what wasn’t his or him...but always poetry was the beauty of sound on someone’s lips regardless of whether I knew who wrote it...my dad’s voice owned it.
In the world of my early childhood(women seemed to be forever swathed in summer dresses with immaculate flower prints flowing all over the beauty of their bodies) . I cried because they were so beautiful. They hurt my soul.
A floral frock then was the essence of femininity and its spell has still not worn off(from the middle of the 1950’s) ... it lingers in my mind like woodbine twisting around the stem of honeysuckle…one at one with the other...the flower of my childhood adored like no other...its perfume lingering now in parfum upon the nape of my lover’s neck as I stroke back her hair to tell her that I love her... I love her! Her smile like her perfume still floating in the air after she is gone. “Oh woman much missed...how I cry to you...cry to you...”
As Hardy or my Dad or my own voice once cried..
I could always recognise a Rodgers & Harts song(even if I had never heard it before) because it would almost invariably make me weep. Gradually song after song that I wept to become known to me as being written by these two. Even now bringing my friend Gina to a show in Hampstead entitled ONE FROM THE HEART...it was hard to hold back the tears. I can’t hear a Rodgers & Hart in public or else... The actor playing Larry was Hart reincarnated...a sheer delight. When he sang the immensely sad SPRING IS HERE...oh God!
One of the earliest joys I could ever treasure was saving up pocket money to own for my very own...ELLA FITZGEARLD SINGS THE RODGERS AND HART SONGBOOK. I played it until there were no more grooves in it only the whisper of the ghost of it...I sang them in my mind whilst doing dishes... hummed them in homework...they becoming the soundtrack of my life and someday I had hoped to meet the love of my life and for a Rodgers & Hart song to come true.
And indeed it did... Frieda flew into my life as easy as a leaf floating through an open window settles itself upon a chair and settles itself in as if it were expecting to be served tea. Frieda was magical...she could turn herself into a fallen leaf…a piece of music to be danced to...a smile that could break a heart...a heart that smiled and smiled... a beautiful daring darling woman...essence of woman.
One night invited to a ball(garden orchestra and all) on a Valentine’s Day night she wore a beautiful floral print that imprinted her body on the back of the eye leaving no room for anything else to enter... I was totally enraptured.
During the evening the orchestra leader announced a selection of tunes by the most romantic writers of a song...Rodgers & Hart. I was in heaven.
Here was the woman I loved above all and we danced to tune after tune under a full moon. In the poem we are dancing to WHERE OR WHEN and falling in love all over again. Each time we saw each other we fell in love as if for the first time...we were constantly amazed at the wonder of each other and couldn’t take our eyes off of each other...each moment as if we had just met.
I remember Frieda having her shower and me wrapping a big fluffy towel around her as she stepped out. I kissed her breast and she closed her eyes... didn’t open then again until I had her dried and dressed her from her delicate under garments to her beautiful dress. Blind with love... I brushed her hair... put on her make up...prepared for her to leave for the ball and only then did she open her eyes and kiss me...tell me how wonderful it was to live in a world of just the sensation of me attending her every need...clothing her...looking after her...trusting each movement that happened to her as if nothing could happen to her. She said she had felt me so intensely and each touch was a little miracle...each kiss a little prayer. She said she had wanted to stay there forever. She laughed and I laughed at her laughter... delicious as water to a dying man in a desert. I was impossibly happy and hopelessly in love.
The poem(as is its nature) relates relentlessly what happened then and the magic of an afternoon that nodded off into twilight and night became dawning.
If ever there was a moment I wanted to keep and treasure for ever and ever it would be...this one.
Dónall Dempsey
Edward Hirsch (born January 20, 1950) is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published eight books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of work. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City (not to be mistaken with E. D. Hirsch, Jr.).