Yes, long shadows go out from the bales; and yes, the soul must part from the body: what else could it do? The men sprawl near the baler, too tired to leave the field. They talk and smoke, and the tips of their cigarettes blaze like small roses in the night air. (It arrived and settled among them before they were aware.) The moon comes to count the bales, and the dispossessed-- Whip-poor-will, Whip-poor-will --sings from the dusty stubble. These things happen. . .the soul's bliss and suffering are bound together like the grasses. . . The last, sweet exhalations of timothy and vetch go out with the song of the bird; the ravaged field grows wet with dew.
From Otherwise: New & Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon, published by Graywolf Press. Copyright © 1996 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon. Used with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved.