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Chagall's sweet lovers mounting into blue

Remind me that discovery by two

Of any world the mind can wander through

Is like the time when young and left alone,

We touched the secret fringe of being one,

Back of the playground full of Everyone.

Love is like childhood, caught in trust and fear.

The statues point to omens in the air,

And yet the fountains bubble bright and clear.

Lost in the garden rank with contradiction,

We see the fences sprout for our affliction,

And the red-rose-tree curtly labelled Fiction.

Nothing to tell us whether what they mean

Is true of this or any other scene.

We only know the summer leaves are green,

Alive and dense for two to penetrate--

An exploration difficult and great

As when one day beside the schoolyard gate,

Straggling behind to glean a sunlight stone,

One first perceived and knew itself as one.

Now add this pebble to that early one.

(1955)