Poem by Lola Ridge

Promenade

     Undulant rustlings,
     Of oncoming silk,
     Rhythmic, incessant,
     Like the motion of leaves…
     Fragments of color
     In glowing surprises…
     Pink inuendoes
     Hooded in gray
     Like buds in a cobweb
     Pearled at dawn…
     Glimpses of green
     And blurs of gold
     And delicate mauves
     That snatch at youth…
     And bodies all rosily
     Fleshed for the airing,
     In warm velvety surges
     Passing imperious, slow…

Women drift into the limousines
That shut like silken caskets
On gems half weary of their glittering…
Lamps open like pale moon flowers…
Arcs are radiant opals
Strewn along the dusk…
No common lights invade.
And spires rise like litanies -
Magnificats of stone
Over the white silence of the arcs,
Burning in perpetual adoration.

1. Broadway
2. “The Everlasting Return”
3. Dispossed
4. The Fog
5. Frank Little at Calvary

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