How is it that I am now so softly awakened, My leaves shaken down with music? — Darling, I love you. It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths b… - Conrad Aiken

" "

How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music? — Darling, I love you.

It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before, — Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.

It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes, — Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.

Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.

How is it, then, that I am now so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air? — Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you…