Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Black Prayers

Mary Austin

THERE is a woman

Has taken my man from me!

How was I to know,

When I gave him my soul to drink

In the moon of Corn-planting

When the leaves of the oak

Are furred like a mouse’s ear,

When the moon curled like a prayer plume

In the green streak over Tuyonyi?

When I poured my soul to his

In the midst of my body’s trembling,

How was I to know

That the soul of a woman was no more to him

Than sweet sap dripping

From a bough wind-broken?

If I had known

I could have kept my soul from him

Even though I kept not my body.

That woman, with her side-looking eyes!

Whatever she takes from him,

It is my soul she is taking.

Waking sharply at night,

I can feel my life pulled from me,

Like water in an unbaked olla.

Then I know he is with her,

She is drinking from his lips

The soul I gave him.

Therefore I make black prayers for her

With this raven’s feather,

With owl feathers edged with silence,

That all her days may be night-haunted.

Let blackness come upon her—

The downward road

Toward Sippapu;

Let her walk in the shadow of silence!

Would I had kept my soul

Though I gave my body!

Better the sly laugh and the pointed finger

Than this perpetual gnawing of my soul

By a light woman.

Now I know why these women are so fair—

They are fed on the hearts of better women,

Who would not take another’s man

Knowing there is no untying

The knot of free-given affection;

Let darkness come upon her!

Let her feet stumble

Into the Black Lake of Tears!

Let her soul drown,

Let those above not hear her!—

By the black raven’s plume,

By the owl’s feather!