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 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 ....
From The Boat of Quiet Hours by Jane Kenyon, published by Graywolf Press. © 1986 by Jane Kenyon. Used with permission. All rights reserved.