Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks
by Jane Kenyon
I am the blossom pressed in a book
and found again after 200 years
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper
When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me
I am food on the prisoner’s plate
I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills
I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden
I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge
I am the heart contracted by joy
the longest hair, white
before the rest
I am the basket of fans
presented to the widow
I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit
I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name.
Welcome Morning
—Anne Sexton
There is joy
in all
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.
The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
dies young.
Hello to all my friends and readers. The words of the feminists poets were in my mind so I shared them with you today. I hope everyone is well. We are having our first hurricane, Hurricane Arthur. I would like to ask that if you don’t mind. please send white light and prayers for my daughter who is just leaving her beach place and driving north to home. They live close to where the storm will come inland. Thank you all. They were closing up and readying the beach house for the storm. This hurricane is coming with much less warning than people usually have to prepare. Thanks everyone. And may all of you be safe over this celebration of our country’s birth. Happy 4th of July!!
idealisticrebel 