Evidence: Poems

Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.

Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think— no, you will realize— that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying.

eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in… And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star Both intimate and ultimate, And you will be heart-shaken and respectful. And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper Oh let me, for a while longer, enter the two Beautiful bodies of your lungs... Look, and look again. This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes. It’s more than bones. It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It’s more than the beating of a single heart. It’s praising. It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving. You have a life- just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe Still another… And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope. I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is. I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger. And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know? Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City.

MYSTERIES, YES Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs. How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

When I Am Among the Trees" When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches. And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.

As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail: it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in the world that can hold, in a mix of power and sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas, ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.

No, I'd never been to this country before. No, I didn't know where the roads would lead me. No, I didn't intend to turn back.

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star both intimate and ultimate, and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful. And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper: oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two beautiful bodies of your lungs.

Of course I am thinking the Lord was once young and will never in fact be old. And who else could this be, who goes off down the green path, Carrying his sandals, and singing?

Do you think of them as decoration? Think again. Here are maples, flashing. And here are the oaks, holding on all winter to their dry leaves. And here are the pines, that will never fail, until death, the instructions to be green.

It's more than bones. It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It's more than the beating of the single heart. It's praising. It's giving until the giving feels like receiving. You have a life - just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

What we love, shapely and pure, is not to be held, but to be believed in.

I pray for the desperate earth. I pray for the desperate world. I do the little each person can do, it isn't much.

But faith is still there, and silent. Then he who owns the incomparable voice suddenly flows upward and out of the room and I follow, obedient and happy. Of course I am thinking the Lord was once young and will never in fact be old. And who else could this be, who goes off down the green path, carrying his sandals, and singing?

There is the heaven we enter through institutional grace and there are the yellow finches bathing and singing in the lowly puddle.

In his boat he went drinking and dreaming and singing then drowned as he reached for the moon's reflection. Well, probably each of us, at some time, has been as desperate. Not the moon, though.

We do not live in a simple world.

I ... suggest that you sit now very quietly in some lovely wild place, and listen to the silence. And I say that this, too, is a poem.

I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger.

We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we change. Congratulations, if you have changed.

If God exists he isn't just churches and mathematics.

The witchery of living is my whole conversation with you, my darlings. All I can tell you is what I know. Look, and look again. This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes. It's more than bones. It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It's more than the beating of the single heart. It's praising. It's giving until the giving feels like receiving. You have a life—just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

Your clocks, he says plainly, which are always ticking, do not have to be listened to. The spirit of his every word.