Mon 2 Jul 2012
Another treasure
Posted by PJ under poetry
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Lines of poetry stick in my brain, little oddments that come out at the strangest times and places. Two lines from this poem (by one of my favorite poets) often echo in my skull: the first being, “and now she thrives/Now is her time to thrive,” though I hardly understand why. It’s a kind of encouragement in discouraging times for some idiosyncratic reason of my own. The second line is the last line and a half, which I won’t ruin for you. Discover it on your own.
Things
by Jane Kenyon
The hen flings a single pebble aside
with her yellow, reptilian foot.
Never in eternity the same sound—
a small stone falling on a red leaf.
The juncture of twig and branch,
scarred with lichen, is a gate
we might enter, singing.
The mouse pulls batting
from a hundred-year-old quilt.
She chewed a hole in a blue star
to get it, and now she thrives. . . .
Now is her time to thrive.
Things: simply lasting, then
failing to last: water, a blue heron’s
eye, and the light passing
between them: into light all things
must fall, glad at last to have fallen.
