Modern Poetry in Translation

I want to be held. I want somebody dear to hold me
in the wind and the rain when nobody's near to hold me.

I want to be touched as the tree touches sky
and sky touches earth so horizons appear to hold me.

I want to strike out as a flock strikes for home
and home is now this, now that, warm hemisphere to hold me.

I want to uncoil a long river of hair,
my beloved to sleep, to cross sleep's frontier to hold me.

I want all that has been denied me. And more.
Much more than God in some lonely stratosphere to hold me.

I want hand and eye, sweet roving things, and land
for grazing, praising, and the last pioneer to hold me.

I want my ship to come in, hopes to run high
before my back's so bowed even children fear to hold me.

I want to die being held. Hearing my name
thrown, thrown like a rope from a very old pier to hold me.

I want to catch the last echoes, reel them in
like a curing-song in the creel of my ear to hold me.

I want Rodolfo to sing, flooding the gods,
Ah Mimi! as if I were her and he, here, to hold me.