The Cross-Roads poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

A bullet through his heart at dawn. On

the table a letter signed

with a woman’s name. A wind that goes howling round the

house,

and weeping as in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through

the windows,

cold dawn creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs,

creeping over his cold body, creeping across his cold face.

A glaze of thin yellow sunlight on the staring eyes. Wind

howling

through bent branches. A wind which never dies down. Howling,

wailing.

The gazing eyes glitter in the sunlight. The lids are

frozen open

and the eyes glitter.

The thudding of a pick on hard earth. A spade grinding

and crunching.

Overhead, branches writhing, winding, interlacing, unwinding, scattering;

tortured twinings, tossings, creakings. Wind flinging

branches apart,

drawing them together, whispering and whining among them. A

waning,

lobsided moon cutting through black clouds. A stream

of pebbles and earth

and the empty spade gleams clear in the moonlight, then is rammed

again

into the black earth. Tramping of feet. Men

and horses.

Squeaking of wheels.

“Whoa! Ready, Jim?”

“All ready.”

Something falls, settles, is still. Suicides

have no coffin.

“Give us the stake, Jim. Now.”

Pound! Pound!

“He’ll never walk. Nailed to the ground.”

An ash stick pierces his heart, if it buds the

roots will hold him.

He is a part of the earth now, clay to clay. Overhead

the branches sway,

and writhe, and twist in the wind. He’ll never walk with

a bullet

in his heart, and an ash stick nailing him to the cold, black ground.

Six months he lay still. Six months. And the

water welled up in his body,

and soft blue spots chequered it. He lay still, for the

ash stick

held him in place. Six months! Then her face

came out of a mist of green.

Pink and white and frail like Dresden china, lilies-of-the-valley

at her breast, puce-coloured silk sheening about her. Under

the young

green leaves, the horse at a foot-pace, the high yellow wheels of

the chaise

scarcely turning, her face, rippling like grain a-blowing,

under her puce-coloured bonnet; and burning beside her, flaming

within

his correct blue coat and brass buttons, is someone. What

has dimmed the sun?

The horse steps on a rolling stone; a wind in the branches makes

a moan.

The little leaves tremble and shake, turn and quake, over and over,

tearing their stems. There is a shower of young leaves,

and a sudden-sprung gale wails in the trees.

The yellow-wheeled chaise is rocking — rocking,

and all the branches

are knocking — knocking. The sun in the sky is a flat,

red plate,

the branches creak and grate. She screams and cowers,

for the green foliage

is a lowering wave surging to smother her. But she sees

nothing.

The stake holds firm. The body writhes, the body squirms.

The blue spots widen, the flesh tears, but the stake wears well

in the deep, black ground. It holds the body in the still,

black ground.

Two years! The body has been in the ground two years. It

is worn away;

it is clay to clay. Where the heart moulders, a greenish

dust, the stake

is thrust. Late August it is, and night; a night flauntingly

jewelled

with stars, a night of shooting stars and loud insect noises.

Down the road to Tilbury, silence — and the slow flapping of large

leaves.

Down the road to Sutton, silence — and the darkness of heavy-foliaged

trees.

Down the road to Wayfleet, silence — and the whirring scrape of

insects

in the branches. Down the road to Edgarstown, silence

— and stars like

stepping-stones in a pathway overhead. It is very quiet

at the cross-roads,

and the sign-board points the way down the four roads, endlessly

points

the way where nobody wishes to go.

A horse is galloping, galloping up from Sutton. Shaking

the wide,

still leaves as he goes under them. Striking sparks with

his iron shoes;

silencing the katydids. Dr. Morgan riding to a child-birth

over Tilbury way;

riding to deliver a woman of her first-born son. One

o’clock from

Wayfleet bell tower, what a shower of shooting stars! And

a breeze

all of a sudden, jarring the big leaves and making them jerk up

and down.

Dr. Morgan’s hat is blown from his head, the horse swerves, and

curves away

from the sign-post. An oath — spurs — a blurring of

grey mist.

A quick left twist, and the gelding is snorting and racing

down the Tilbury road with the wind dropping away behind him.

The stake has wrenched, the stake has started,

the body, flesh from flesh,

has parted. But the bones hold tight, socket and ball,

and clamping them down

in the hard, black ground is the stake, wedged through ribs and

spine.

The bones may twist, and heave, and twine, but the stake holds them

still

in line. The breeze goes down, and the round stars shine,

for the stake

holds the fleshless bones in line.

Twenty years now! Twenty long years! The body

has powdered itself away;

it is clay to clay. It is brown earth mingled with brown

earth. Only flaky

bones remain, lain together so long they fit, although not one bone

is knit

to another. The stake is there too, rotted through, but

upright still,

and still piercing down between ribs and spine in a straight line.

Yellow stillness is on the cross-roads, yellow

stillness is on the trees.

The leaves hang drooping, wan. The four roads point four

yellow ways,

saffron and gamboge ribbons to the gaze. A little swirl

of dust

blows up Tilbury road, the wind which fans it has not strength to

do more;

it ceases, and the dust settles down. A little whirl

of wind

comes up Tilbury road. It brings a sound of wheels and

feet.

The wind reels a moment and faints to nothing under the sign-post.

Wind again, wheels and feet louder. Wind again — again

— again.

A drop of rain, flat into the dust. Drop! — Drop! Thick

heavy raindrops,

and a shrieking wind bending the great trees and wrenching off their

leaves.

Under the black sky, bowed and dripping with rain,

up Tilbury road,

comes the procession. A funeral procession, bound for

the graveyard

at Wayfleet. Feet and wheels — feet and wheels. And

among them

one who is carried.

The bones in the deep, still earth shiver and pull. There

is a quiver

through the rotted stake. Then stake and bones fall together

in a little puffing of dust.

Like meshes of linked steel the rain shuts down

behind the procession,

now well along the Wayfleet road.

He wavers like smoke in the buffeting wind. His

fingers blow out like smoke,

his head ripples in the gale. Under the sign-post, in

the pouring rain,

he stands, and watches another quavering figure drifting down

the Wayfleet road. Then swiftly he streams after it. It

flickers

among the trees. He licks out and winds about them. Over,

under,

blown, contorted. Spindrift after spindrift; smoke following

smoke.

There is a wailing through the trees, a wailing of fear,

and after it laughter — laughter — laughter, skirling up to the

black sky.

Lightning jags over the funeral procession. A heavy clap

of thunder.

Then darkness and rain, and the sound of feet and wheels.

***

More poems by Amy Lowell