April is National Poetry Month! Conrad Aiken, "Blues for Ruby Matrix," part VII

Man, men get so hung up on menstrual blood. Dudes, I promise you, when you're the one actually producing it, you get past the cosmic symbolism of it and into the mundane practicalities and the mundane irritations of it all really fast. (Or maybe not; some women get very hung up on the cosmic symbolism of menstruation, too. Either way, I find it flakey, but I suppose with the women who obsess about menstruation, they're likely to have at least experienced it at some point.)


Conrad Aiken, excerpted from "Blues for Ruby Matrix."

VII

But God's terrific wing that day came down,
loud on the world as loud and white as snow
out of the blue the white and then the silence.
O Ruby, come again and turn the time.

Ruby your name is matrix, rock of ages
cloven by lightning, smitten by thunder,
the surged upon deep shore interminable,
the long, the nebulous waves, the foam of time,

beating upon you, breaking upon you foaming,
the worldlong fruitfulness of assuaging sea,
hammers of foam, O Ruby come again
be broken for our simple coming forth--

let the rocks fall upon us with fearful sound,
the long bright glacier of the stars be broken
the beginning and the final word be spoken
come again, come again, and turn the world.

This world that is your turning and returning,
matrix mother mistress menstrual moon,
wafer of scarlet in the virgin void,
O come again and turn the world to thought.

But God's terrific wing that day came down
snow on the world, and Ruby, you were snow.
deceitful whiteness and the blood congealed
so that the world might know how worlds will end.