Now you think you’ve learned to think & you’ve built
your hut inside you; learned how the animals fall asleep
within the inner distance, a meadow growing beneath
the blood-heat of a heart-star; you’ve studied the May grass
long enough to know the color green, what it means
& doesn’t mean, how one grows tall only to look down,
the lesson at the root so far away, & often a blade
ends the contemplation; but if not, a thought can burst
out the head so fine, the wind carries it away; it’s hard
to say what you most want to say, but you’ll try—
that the ground you cleared yesterday is overgrown today,
& this shrub-oak is your endless work, & these weeds
the wild deer nibble on in the night, your endless labor;
endless as the hammer teaching the hand what a hand is,
a lesson the hand forgets once the hammer’s put down;
what is this suddenly opening flower of five pale petals
is the question you’ve learned to fold away in a pocket;
what is this yellow bloom in the sky, more faith than fact,
so bright it blinds, & empties the mind; you walk backward
away from all you thought you wanted to achieve, a laurel
or degree, eyes locked on what you’ve lost, in heedful
retreat, forsaking mastery for something else—
for that
which is
nothing
more than itself, the flower of the flowering apple tree.
Used with the permission of the author.