To Helen

By Frank Marshall Davis
The thin cool fingers of the wind
Caress your tall loveliness;
The wind kisses
Each shining strand of spun brightness
About your head
Then sends a shimmering waterfall
About the face of you;
I think the summer sun
Would be jealous of your hair,
O Golden Goddess,
Did he not know you.

As for me
I have known you through long yearning years;
Ages ago I built a home for you
Within my mind
A home where I have lived with you
So that when you came down to me
Tired of Olympus,
O Golden Goddess,
I already knew how you would be.

And yet I did not know—
For not even the clearest dream
Can equal the dazzling reality of you.
There is no way to think
The wedding of your lips with mine;
Imagination makes no magic
To match the roaring wonder
Of you close to me;
And now that you have come
My dream caught and clothed in flesh
I shall not let you go.

I shall make you part of me,
My darling,
Fundamental as heart
Primary as mind
And to you I shall become
As the blood in your veins
So that neither you nor I
Could survive
The mutilation of leaving.

Could we today
See the first atom created
Looking on as it grew into a universe
Suns burn and blossom, hurling off whole worlds
Spinning stars and planets grow tired, cold and die
Matter disintegrates
All that is become again one hapless atom
Then vanish
There still would not be time enough
To satisfy my love for you … 

Notes:

“To Helen” is from Black Moods: Collected Poems (University of Illinois Press, 2002). © 2002 Board of Trustees. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press.

This poem is part of the portfolio “As Direct as Good Blues: Frank Marshall Davis.” You can read the rest of the portfolio in the December 2023 issue.

Source: Poetry (December 2023)