PART TWO
Liberty 5-3000 . . . Liberty five-three thousand
. . . Liberty 5-3000 . . . .
We wish to write this name. We wish to speak it,
but we dare not speak it above a whisper.
For men are forbidden to take notice of women,
and women are forbidden to take notice of men.
But we think of one among women, they whose name
is Liberty 5-3000, and we think of no others.
The women who have been assigned to work
the soil live in the Homes of the Peasants
beyond the City. Where the City ends
there is a great road winding off to the
north, and we Street Sweepers must keep
this road clean to the first milepost.
There is a hedge along the road, and beyond the
hedge lie the fields. The fields are black
and ploughed, and they lie like a great
fan before us, with their furrows gathered
in some hand beyond the sky, spreading
forth from that hand, opening wide apart
as they come toward us, like black pleats
that sparkle with thin, green spangles.
Women work in the fields, and their white
tunics in the wind are like the wings of
sea-gulls beating over the black soil.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46