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.

His step was soundless and he seemed A phantom in the land. ]