Hilda Dolittle

Said Hilda, who used her mind,
"Vision is of 2 kinds --

vision of the womb and
of the brain."

If I agree, will her words save me?
OK, say I agree,

still nothing any woman does
raises her gloriously

nor utterly removes her from the float
of helpless, hungry jelly-moated

fish streaming towards her prey.
Her act of birth, the infant's 1st defiant cry --

She's defied death, for Christ's sake! -- crowded
the dark with light. Shouldn't she shout?

Even old
she would proclaim, boldly:

"The reddest rose unfolds."
Nothing can stop what I've told.

She wore the image,
the rose's blazoned flash

on her robes, and with all this, insisted:
Womb and brain must co-exist.

Pale petals lingered in her folds,
"I am old."

Still, Hilda dared wear gold.
Till you came, I was old.

The light caught the robe, blazed
up the next perfumed phrase.

She thrust the force of grace
into the withered limbs of dying.

I say she made holy
the halting lowliness

of her old age. Her control, noble.
"The reddest rose unfolds.

You would not care for this,"
she told the boy, "She draws

the veil aside, unbinds my eyes."
Write, write or die.

Note: Italicized lines from HD's Notes on Thought and Vision, 1919 and Red Rose and a Beggar, 1960.

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Biography

Patricia Brody has been studying at the City College of New York with Marilyn Hacker. Her manuscript Let the Women Sing Hosannas recently won the Academy of American Poets award from CCNY. Her work has appeared in American and Canadian journals including Poet Lore, The Paris Review and A Room of One's Own.