Altitude

I wonder
how it would be here with you,
where the wind
that has shaken off its dust in low valleys
touches one cleanly,
as with a new-washed hand,
and pain
is as the remote hunger of droning things,
and anger
but a little silence
sinking into the great silence.

Lola Ridge

Lola Ridge, born Rose Emily Ridge, was an Irish-American anarchist poet and influential editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publications. Best known for her long poems and involvement in various social movements, Ridge's work addressed issues such as oppression and social justice. She published her first book of poems, "The Ghetto and Other Poems," in 1918, which gained her considerable acclaim. Ridge's poetry often focused on the lives of immigrants and the working class.

Lola Ridge

Dedication (To my Mother)

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

Dispossessed

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

The Star

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

The Garden

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Edge

I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me...
But there was time...
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss...
I do not know how long...
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast
Like little bare-foot urchins - shaking my hands away...
But I remember
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein...
And a wind came out of the grass,
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.

As the night grew
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth
Fell in ashen folds about the hills,
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them...
There must have been a spent moon,
For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver...

That too I remember...
And the tenderly rock...

Lola Ridge

Dispossessed

Tender and tremulous green of leaves
Turned up by the wind,
Twanging among the vines -
Wind in the grass
Blowing a clear path
For the new-stripped soul to pass...

The naked soul in the sunlight...
Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight
On the hill-side shimmering.

Dance light on the wind, little soul,
Like a thistle-down floating
Over the butterflies
And the lumbering bees...

Come away from that tree
And its shadow grey as a stone...

Bathe in the pools of light
On the hillside shimmering -
Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain -

But do not linger and look
At that bleak thing under the tree.

Lola Ridge

Under-Song

There is music in the strong
        Deep-throated bush,
Whisperings of song
        Heard in the leaves' hush -
Ballads of the trees
        In tongues unknown -
A reminiscent tone
        On minor keys...

Boughs swaying to and fro
        Though no winds pass...
Faint odors in the grass
        Where no flowers grow,
And flutterings of wings
        And faint first notes,
Once babbled on the boughs
        Of faded springs.

Is it music from the graves
        Of all things fair
Trembling on the staves
        Of spacious air -
Fluted by the winds
        Songs with no words -
Sonatas from the throats
        Of master birds?

One peering through the husk
        Of darkness thrown
May hear it...

Lola Ridge

Wind Rising In The Alleys

Wind rising in the alleys
My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls.
You are full of unspent dreams....
You are laden with beginnings....
There is hope in you... not sweet... acrid as blood in the mouth.
Come into my tossing dust
Scattering the peace of old deaths,
Wind rising in the alleys,
Carrying stuff of flame.

Lola Ridge

Jaguar

Nasal intonations of light
and clicking tongues...
publicity of windows
stoning me with pent-up cries...
smells of abattoirs...
smells of long-dead meat.

Some day-end -
while the sand is yet cozy as a blanket
off the warm body of a squaw,
and the jaguars are out to kill...
with a blue-black night coming on
and a painted cloud
stalking the first star -
I shall go alone into the Silence...
the coiled Silence...
where a cry can run only a little way
and waver and dwindle
and be lost.

And there...
where tiny antlers clinch and strain
as life grapples in a million avid points,
and threshing things
strike and die,
letting their hate live on
in the spreading purple of a wound...
I too
will make covert of a...

Lola Ridge

Interim

The earth is motionless
And poised in space...
A great bird resting in its flight
Between the alleys of the stars.
It is the wind's hour off....
The wind has nestled down among the corn....
The two speak privately together,
Awaiting the whirr of wings.

Lola Ridge