Walpurgis Night by Paul Klee - 1935
COME ON, STEVIE
Come on, Stevie,
let me pull you up
just one more time
through the door
of my waiting,
to bury you at last.
Why do you want to see
your tall Seminole mother,
hand against the sun,
standing on the rocks,
searching for your
soft summer hair
in the cold swirling
currents of the river?
Why can’t you just
stay under the water,
snagged and caught
by some long ago tree
now rooted in the soft
black silt of the river’s floor?
Don’t show us your once sweet face.
Don’t show us your open wounds.
Don’t show us your watery lungs
or your eyes so wide that we can see
all of your hope lost in them.
At night I sweat, as I walk
along the river’s edge
looking for you.
On the day that you disappeared,
your mother said that I could
find you - and I believed her.
But, someday soon, Stevie,
I will be too old to drag you up
from the depths of the river.
I will be too old to fix your eyes,
and to dry you off,
and to kiss your wounds,
and to rock you in my arms,
and to sing to you,
and to pray for you.
Someday soon,
I will not drag you up,
and shake you out,
and prop you up
against the beating
of my own living heart.
