FIRST  LOVE
 
Will there always be hungry and angry? 
I run for my life into the woods 
till my side is stuck with a hawthorn prick. 

O great trees, cover me! 
I have taken a man with my eyelids: 
the sun of a dying moon is upon me. 

O mother earth, cover me! 
Once the world was all Woman 
until Man uncurled in sin. 

O little trees, cover me! 
I hear him coming to search me out: 
I see him creeping to where I hide. 

O, the wombs that I have never wist 
and the paps that have never given suck! 
Wildly I watch him.  I must have water! . . . 

Pool, sweet pool: is my hat on straight?

                     (1945)