Prayer
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
Astonishment
Oarlocks
knock in the dusk, a rowboat rises
and
settles, surges and slides.
Under a
great eucalyptus,
a boy and
a girl feel around with their feet
for those
small flattish stones so perfect
for
scudding across the water.
*
A dog
barks from deep in the silence.
A
woodpecker, double-knocking,
keeps
time. I have slept in so many arms.
Consolation?
Probably. But too much
consolation
may leave one inconsolable.
*
The water
before us has hardly moved
except in
the shallowest breathing places.
For us
back then, to live seemed almost to die.
One day a
darkness fell between her and me.
When we
woke, a hawthorn sprig
stood in
the water glass at our bedside.
*
There is
silence in the beginning.
The life
within us grows quiet.
There is
little fear. No matter
how all
this comes out, from now on
it cannot
not exist ever again.
We liked
talking our nights away
in words
close to the natural language,
which
most other animals can still speak.
*
The
present pushes back the life of regret.
It draws
forward the life of desire. Soon memory
will have
started sticking itself all over us.
We were
fashioned from clay in a hurry,
poor throwing
may mean it didn't matter
to the
makers if their pots cracked.
*
On the
mountain tonight the full moon
faces the
full sun. Now could be the moment
when we
fall apart or we become whole.
Our time
seems to be up – I think I even hear it stopping.
Then why
have we kept up the singing for so long?
Because
that's the sort of determined creature we are.
Before
us, our first task is to astonish,
and then,
harder by far, to be astonished.
Galway Kinnell
1927-2014