From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

There is no silence lovelier than the one 
That flowers upon a flowering tree at night. 
There is no silence known beneath the sun 
That is so strange to bear, nor half so white. 
If I had all that silence in my heart, 
What yet unfinished heavens I could sing! 
My words lift up and tremble to depart, 
Then die in air, from too much uttering.
It must have been beneath a tree like this 
An angel sought a girl in Galilee, 
While she looked up and pondered how the kiss 
Of God had come with wings and mystery. 
It may be that a single petal fell. 
Heavy with sorrow that it could not tell.