Thirst: Poems

For a long time
I was not even
In this world, yet
Every summer
Every rose
Opened in perfect sweetness
And lived
In gracious repose,
In its own exotic fragrance,
In its huge willingness to give
Something, from its small self,
To the entirely of the world.
I think of them, thousands upon thousands,
In many lands,
Whenever summer came to them,
Rising
Out of the patience of patience,
To leaf and bud and look up
Into the blue sky
Or, with thanks,
Into the rain
That would feed
Their thirsty roots
Latched into the earth-
Sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia,
What did it matter,
The answer was simply to rise
In joyfulness, all their days.
Have I found any better teaching?
Not ever, not yet.
Last week I say my first Botticelli
And almost fainted,
And if I could I would paint like that
But am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs
About roses: teachers, also, of the ways
Toward thanks, and praise.

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."