I.
Where’s Ruby, where has she gone this evening?
what has her heart done, is it enlarged,
is she so flown with sombre magnificence,
is the web wrapped round her and she mad?
Why, she should have been here hours ago
and this a snowy night too and the soul starving—
Where’s Ruby where has she gone today?
is she so glorious, is she so beautiful,
has she wings that thus abruptly she has gone?
come back Ruby, you are my light-of-love
(and her with a carbuncle too and no money)
where has she gone where has she gone?
I saw her once at a soda fountain,
you don’t believe it you don’t believe it do you?
I saw her once at a soda fountain
strangling sarsaparilla through a paper straw.
Where’s Ruby gone where is she gone this evening—
incandescence has stopped, the night is dark.
I was a driver once and knew a thing or two,
the rails were right but everything else was wrong,
come back Ruby I will unwrap the web around you,
Oh I will blow the snow off your brain tonight
and polish your conscience for you and give you a tip
and show you the stairs to the bright door of hell.
Come Ruby, I will undo your rubber goloshes,
come Ruby, I will undo the clasps,
let us walk along the track of ice a little way
and talk a little way of ice and icicles
for you too knew the way the hoarfrost grew
on God’s terrific wings
how in the heart’s horn comes the prince of pauses,
the peace between the agonies—O you
who found the stepping stone and brought it back,
gave it to me because I stood and loved you,
you who stood, when others stood no more,
on the abandoned and unprosperous shore.
Why it was you I loved and knew, and
it was, the speechless and inalterable you
the one of the Aprils and the one of June,
O undiscoverable and unpursuable one
and one that was not one but two and three
or three that was not three but you and me.
Thus it comes, thus it comes Ruby,
woman who art not woman but a wound,
wound who art not wound but indeed a word,
word that art not word but truly a world
sprung spoken speaking spoiled and spent
in the brief darkness that the darkness meant.
II.
But I was not convinced and said so too,
there among marigolds with Easter coming,
no I was not convinced had no convictions
and she was not convincing in the spring,
it was the wrong time, it was spring.
What I said was nobody’s business, no,
nobody’s business, I said the words straight out
and made no mention of the nightingale
nor of the willow buds or pines or palms
nor of the pleasure parks on Coney Isle
which Ikey Cohn decreed,
but I was blue and made no bones about it,
I was blue and said so to her face
there by the hot-dog stand beneath the lamp
and not so far from the filling-station
I held her hand and told her face to face—
What did I tell her? Oh ask me something easy
why should I say the primrose has an eye,
why should I say the goldenrod is dusty
or the railroad long as hell from here to there,
why should I make remarks about her hair?
Tell me, brother, the little word to whisper,
tell me, brother, the little word to say,
tell me, sisters, the grand technique of love
or how to speak of beauty when you see it,
for what I said was angry that was all,
I told her to go to hell and well-damned stay there.
She made no mention of the nightingale,
why should she with no nightingales about,
nor of that other bird that burns to death.
The sidewalk was red brick beneath our feet,
the hot dog stand bright as the mouth of hell
but she was part and parcel of the brightness
that hell is said to have,
swallowed the night and smiled it back again,
laughed like a million lights, spoke like a cannon
she was a scenic railway crashing downward,
my straw hat blew awav.
Pennies dimes nickels and quarters gone
and midnight come and the last boat so bright
so bright so light so cheap and full of people
all with their mouths and hands—Oh come and see
the world that lies behind the primrose eye
under the gilded teeth of Ikey Cohn—
come and see the water beside the ship,
see the white lines of foam that cross the brain
and break against the skulltop and are bitter,
come and join us in the convincing spring
and learn how sad it is to stay out late.
Good-bye, Ruby, I am fed up with you,
good-bye Ruby, your nose needs powder,
I’ve got that midnight feeling in my heart.
I’ll hate you till breakfast-time, till the poached eggs
make peace between us,
but you were behind the primrose eye and saw
the sunrise world and all the wings—and you
had known the ultimate and called it nothing
and you have sightseen God with tired eyes
and now come back to toast our daily bread.
III.
What she had was something with no name,
if she were dead I’d carve it on a stone,
it was as right as rain as true as time,
necessary as rhythm in a tune,
what she had was only a word or two
spoken under the clock.
Delay was precious and we both delayed,
come on, Ruby, and hold on clock,
but there were springs unsprung or half-sprung, still
compelling mechanism to its stillness
and in the reading-room we read the word,
the silent word that silent spoke of meaning.
it was the now, it was the then, it was the when,
it was the snow, the rain, the wind,
the name and then the where, the name, the street,
the hearse, the cradle, the all-knowing judge—
and I unerring knew the pressing word
and she receptive knew it—
the midnight took my meaning, and the noon
engulfed it in broad sunlight, the swift cloud
carried it northward like a handkerchief
to lose it in the eventualness of time
while I with equal steps climbed up the stairs
away from the remembered, to descend—
and she ascending too, with equal steps,
and she descending too, before and after,
bearing the blossom, her angelic heart,
the thurible, the incense, her quick eyes
knowing the known and guessing the unknown
searching the shadow which my mind betrayed.
Why, we were here before, but now remember
you at your time and I at mine,
both of us here to know this selfsame thing—
and now together know it, now together,
and in this pause together of the wings
touch the feathers, let the snow touch snow,
whisper recoil from whisper, frost shun frost,
that we may know what we have known already
but never with each other in this place,
or at this time, or even in this world,
and never with remembrance of before.
What she had was an evening paper, a purse,
a hat, a cape, and what I had was purpose,
but now, the purpose gone, I have—what have I Ruby,
if not a phrase of ice to carve on stone,
ambiguous skeleton of a whisper, gone
as soon as spoken, and myself alone?
IV.
Boy, if I told you half of what I know—
the gulfs we cross by day to meet at night,
the Lincoln Highway and the Big Rock Candy mountains,
the deserts of the Gulf of Mexico,
boy, if I told you how I spend my time
at night-school learning all the stars of love
propound the constellations of her heart,
the North Star and the Southern Cross
voyage to regions of the albatross
and come back spangled with bright frost of death—
boy, if you carved with me the curves I carve
against the dark undaunted ice of time
and knew those curves of hers that curve beyond
geometry of hand or eye or mind
into the bloodstream and above again,
westward under the sea with setting suns
oblique dishonest and profound as hell,
corrupt unchanging changing choice as steel—
Boy, if you went with me along her streets
under the windows of her lighted eyes,
saw the foul doors the purlieus and the cats,
the filth put out the food received the money
the evil music grinning all its teeth,
cachinnations above the sauerkraut!
This is where she lives and loves, that Ruby,
this is where she lives and pays her way
among the unborn and the dead and dying,
the dirty and the sweating, pays her way
with sweat and guile and triumph and deceit
burning the empty paper bags and scraps.
Boy, if I told you where the money comes from
out of a silver mine in Colorado,
the unrefined refined and the bright goddess
brought all the way from chaos to Mike’s Alley
and on her hand at noon to pay the rent
roof to prevent the rage of heaven’s tent—
but if I told you half of what I know
I’d have to be the gulf of Mexico
the Big Rock Candy Mountains in the spring
and every other big or little thing.
I’d wear the Milky Way out with my walking,
wear out my shoes with the walking blues.
Hush Ruby, I meant these words for someone else,
hush Ruby, it’s all right now,
only a little student of geometry
who wanted to know the why and where of curves
went out and came back frozen by the stars
with geometric frostbite in his brain.
Take him in with you and warm him Ruby,
take him in with you put him to sleep,
tell him the difference between truth and lying,
tell him where you’ve been and what you mean,
the clock, the closet, horror’s cloaca too
and wake him, when his heart is fed and dead.
V.
But this was nothing boy, and I said nothing,
no leaf or love was born but it took time.
Come on and shake the cosmic dice, come seven,
come on and shake the bones for odd or even
but this was nothing and no one said a word.
I saw the palm leaf and I took it down, Ruby,
I saw the gold leaf and I took it down.
I saw the heaven leaf and I took it down, honey,
I saw the dead leaf and I took it down.
I saw the word that shaped the lips of water,
I saw the idea that shaped the mind of water,
I saw the thought of time that shaped the face,
I saw the face that brought disgrace to space
but this was nothing, girl, and I said nothing,
nothing I thought, what could I think but nothing?
who nothing knew and was the seed of nothing,
the conscious No One watching Naught from Nowhere.
Take the palm leaf for what it is no other,
take the gold-leaf and put it down,
take the heaven-leaf and put it down, Ruby,
take the dead leaf and put it down
for what is wisdom, wisdom is only this—
history of the world in a deathbed kiss,
past and to be in agony brought home,
and kingdom of darkness come.
VI.
No use hanging round we must be going,
no use waiting before the evening altar
green screen of evening sky between paired stars
where the cloud worships and the wind is bowed,
there’s no use waiting Ruby we must be moving.
You are a rock like that blue mountain too
jagged and scarred like that where the snow lingers
and I have seen the sunrise on white shoulders,
the orchid among the boulders,
the edelweiss and ewigkeit
and the retreating armies of the night.
No use waiting, Ruby, we will not hear,
the proud hosanna of the stars is not for us,
we will not hear them sing the silver word
nor see the angelic wings ascend between
the silver trumpets against a sky of icy green.
This we abandon, and though this have seen
see it no more, but take our evening down
along dark streets that you have made your own,
the wretched streets that in-and-out are you,
there where the cry of pain is in the bone
and where your darkness prowls around us nightlong,
approaches and retreats, confronts us snarling,
devours the hours—is this your house Ruby,
are these your stairs, is that your window open,
is there a bed a ceiling above the bed?
do voices come and go and slam of doors?
Smells of fecundity, the human spawn,
far off the cries of trains, the taxi’s ticking
is all coincidence that thus together
everything meets upon this tip of time—
your hand that murdered men or drew the morning
out of the seventh vial, or rolled the mountains
against the tombs of all the gods, or poured
the zeros one on other and destroyed
the indestructible to create the new—
came like a flame from sand, reentered water,
was braided like the ice, became a wall
sang through the trumpet of eternity
and now, descended, holds a greasy key
and presses it against a greasy lock—
Farewell Ruby, for this is where I leave you
your hand releases me its filth is on me,
the holy filth of long corruption comes
coldly upon me as an absolution,
sharply we flower in this foul farewell.
But God’s terrific wing that day came down,
loud on the world as loud and white as snow
out of the blue the white and then the silence.
O Ruby, come again and turn the time.
Ruby, your name is matrix rock of ages
cloven by lightning, smitten by thunder,
the surged upon deep shore interminable,
the long the nebulous waves, the foam of time
beating upon you breaking upon you foaming,
the worldlong fruitfulness of assuaging sea,
hammers of foam, O Ruby come again
be broken for our simple coming forth—
let the rocks fall upon us with fearful sound,
the long bright glacier of the stars be broken,
the beginning and the final word be spoken,
come again come again and turn the world.
This world that is your turning and returning,
matrix mother mistress menstrual moon,
wafer of scarlet in the virgin void,
Oh come again and turn the world to thought.
But God’s terrific wing that day came down
snow on the world and Ruby you were snow,
deceitful whiteness and the blood concealed
so that the world might know how worlds will end.