FLOWER ALONE
A Santa Clara woman
In Sant’ Domingo town,
Her rights were less than human
That day at red sundown,——
They made her less than dogs are made
Within the stranger town.
Oh, she was wicked merry
On Santa Clara street!
Red-brown as a berry,
Hale as ripened wheat;
And he who came to woo her,
He came on dancing feet.
Round his raven locks a kerchief gay,
His belt of the silver wrought,——
From Sant’ Domingo all the way
With none but her in thought:
A braided scarf, a turquoise ring,
These were the gifts he brought.
Why should she heed the old wives’ saw?
“A bride should seek her bed
“Within the pale of the village law
“Wherein she hath been bred.”
At old wives’ tales and old wives’ wails
She shook a saucy head.
And so in Sant’ Domingo town
She ground her daily corn;
She drew her water at the well,
And there her babe was born;
And earthen pots she made to sell
And quaintly did adorn.
A Santa Clara woman
Within a stranger town,
Its folk were more than human
To hold her as their own:
A saucy-head she had been bred,
Should they not bring her down?
They mocked her for her outland ways,
They jeered her kin and clan;
They whispered evil of her days,
They won away her man,——
A saucy-head she had been bred,
But, oh, her heart grew wan!
They babbled evil of her days
And evil of her art;
They mocked, they jeered, they came to gaze
Where she bode with aching heart,——
Where moody-eyed in her alien pride
With her babe she sat apart.
A Santa Clara woman
In Sant’ Domingo town,
They made her less than human,
And the hour was red sundown
When from cut and gash of the plaited lash
Crimson her blood ran down.
Crimson her blood as the setting sun,
But never to blow or curse
Did she open her lips till their work was done
And they left her for better or worse,——
Till they dragged her tied to a horse’s tail
And left her for a corse.
She lay beside the beasts’ corral,
Her body as the dead,
And dimly she heard the tiny call
Of her babe that would be fed,——
Dimly she heard, and she did crawl
To nurse it, while she bled.
A Santa Clara woman
Within a stranger town;
Her rights were less than human
When redly the sun went down,——
But the babe that was born of her body
She nursed while the blood ran down.
With curious eyes I watched her at work
Where she plied her potter’s art
And creatures drew with cunning hand,
Bright for the white man’s mart,——
I wondered at the blood-red band
Limned to each crimsoned heart.