I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years …
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper …
When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me …
I am food on the prisoner’s plate …
I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills …
I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden …
I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge …
I am the heart contracted by joy …
The longest hair, white
before the rest …
I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow …
I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit …
I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name.
Jane Kenyon
Otherwise
THE POETRY PLACE 