|
| | Look, the trees |
| are turning |
| their own bodies |
| into pillars |
| |
| of light, |
| are giving off the rich |
| fragrance of cinnamon |
| and fulfillment, |
| |
| the long tapers |
| of cattails |
| are bursting and floating away over |
| the blue shoulders |
| |
| of the ponds, |
| and every pond, |
| no matter what its |
| name is, is |
| |
| nameless now. |
| Every year |
| everything |
| I have ever learned |
| |
| in my lifetime |
| leads back to this: the fires |
| and the black river of loss |
| whose other side |
| |
| is salvation, |
| whose meaning |
| none of us will ever know. |
| To live in this world |
| |
| you must be able |
| to do three things: |
| to love what is mortal; |
| to hold it |
| |
| against your bones knowing |
| your own life depends on it; |
| and, when the time comes to let it |
| go, |
| to let it go. |
|
|
