I The white house in winter hunches in snowy air: the sky is white, the trees and clearings white, and the wind whips the sea white and black. I see you here, back before blankness turned my mind to a field over which no one walks and where one sees only drifts hardened in sunlight. The white dress you wore our first year flounces like sea foam and falls against the granite shore, then recedes offshore. Swept-out rooms no longer show your ever being here. II In my dream we are lost in the woods. We’ve missed the turning hidden by snow. The way we didn’t go leads home. The way we are going leads to the sea. You follow me. You shake. Afraid, you take berries from a bough and put them in your mouth. I try to stop you before you swallow more. Snow falls in the hourglass wood. We have understood that you won’t wake up. It’s then I wake up in the white house, ice ticking like needles on the glass. III Low sun, thin shadows, sere days, frozen meadows. Cooling coals, gray fires, ice downing black wires. And the lamp is burning down. And it is miles to town. IV I hear you crying through the trees. The white house wheezes like a patient’s shallow breath: at the moment of death, his slow rattle. I hear a sound like crying though the trees. You return as a wind-wraith, specter-seeming, a ghost ship blown to tatters on its trip home from battle. V Out in the reach a bell is sounding the way through the fog. Out in the reach a gong is guiding boats past the rocks. If I hear the channel bell I can ride the swell to safety. If I keep to the bell I know the following sea will not dash me against the bar, as it has before. Above the still harbor I will watch for spring. Naskeag Point, Maine

Il a tourné autour de moi pendant des mois des jours des heures et il a posé la main sur mon sein en m’appelant son petit cœur Et il m’a arraché une promesse comme on arrache une fluer à la terre Et il a gardé cette promesse dans sa tête comme on garde une fluer dans une serre J’ai oublié ma promesse et la fluer tout de suite a fané Et les yeux lui sont sortis de la tête il m’a regardée de travers et il m’a injuriée Une autre est venu qui ne m’a rien demandé mais il m’a regardée tout entière Déjà pour lui j’étais nue de la tête aux pieds et quand il m’a déshabillée je me suis laisée faire Et je ne savais pas qui c’était. He hovered around me for months days hours and he put his hand on my breast calling me his little heart And he pulled a promise from me as you pull a flower from the soil And he watched over this promise as you watch a flower in a greenhouse I forgot my promise and the flower immediately withered His eyes popped out of his head and he looked at me crosswise and he abused me I met another who asked nothing of me who stared at me quite openly For him I was already naked from head to foot and when he undressed me I let him And I did not know who he was.

1. This is my town. Here is Main Street. Here is where the mill was. Here’s the lobby where we wait. No work today. No work at all this week. Here is the muddy river and the chill we cannot shake. I know the pastor and I know the man who owns the store across the street. I see them at the market and I see them on the street. I see them at the ballgame. Why don’t they look at me? Recitative: It’s my home too. And I'm nothing like you. So what do you suggest we do now? 2. I know what God likes I know what he wants of me: to love my children and to live free. I know what I know and I know what is right. I know right is good, and I will yell what I know to keep me from evil like I should. Not all people act the same. Not all people look alike. Not all words are understood. Some hate us for being free, some for being good. My family comes from far away but we’ve been here now many years and many generations. Recitative: How long before I belong like you? It’s my home too. So do you suggest we do now? 3. I can’t care for him who can’t care for me. Recitative: I’m an American. I love America. Recitative: I love America. Both: God Bless America. I have not spoken up for a long time. It’s time I spoke up for myself, and for the people I love It makes me angry to think how no one cares what happens to us except for the few who grew up here. Recitative: My children grew up here. Your children grew up here. They are the future. This is their town. 4. I don’t believe what I see on TV. I no longer believe the White House cares about me. I can’t believe how little we have. I want to believe that God is love. Your god is not my God. My God, I will not forget you. Recitative: Is what I believe in so different from you. This is my home too. So what do we do? What do We do? 5. Let me make it simple: I was here first, I live in the middle, I believe in the law, I believe in what’s just. Is what I believe in so different from you. This is my home too. So what do we do? What do We do? This is my town. This is the school where my kids all go. Look at the rust on the scrap at the mill. We stand for our country. It stands for us, not for those who want to take without giving, not for those who take our living and leave us starving, not for those who leave us with nothing, not for those who make us strangers at home. Recitative: A mighty woman with a torch . . . Her name Mother of Exiles . . . Saying: Both: Give me your tired, your poor, // We are tired. We are the poor. Your huddled masses . . . // We are the huddled masses . . . yearning to breathe free. // yearning to breathe free.