Briefly it Enters, and Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book,

found again after two hundred 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 the 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 there in the basket of fruit 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....

Jane Kenyon
Pintura: Paul Foxton