…influence with the good angel who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world would be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life as an unfailing antidote against boredom and dis enchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
from Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson
ripening takes time
fruit comes slowly
beginning deeply somewhere
in a stretch of sleepy tree
some look to see
what ability I bear
to analyze
not to care
I grow best
with those who see
not just the slowness
but the green in me
frankly green
then consciously
yellow
row upon row
it listens
itself
into
ears
what
the winged life
wants
is
to be
out
in
an open
commerce
of hearts
where
nothing
is
bought
or
sold
sandwiched between
hurry and home
hungry on the way
we meet in
our words wander
lost between the deep
fries and our darting eyes
we play with the ketchup
to get out
what is stuck inside
the food
goes too fast and we
too slow
to share what we both are
hungry to know
we leave crumpled
napkins on our table
swallowing
what we long to say
and part
alone
the light
with darkness
the wind
with stillness
forever
with now
knowing
with not
being
with being
with
when
the leper
in me
meets
the leper
in you
with nothing
but nothing
between
us
let
the world
begin
how unlike
a cloud
in the wind
am I
when
what I
use
to shape
my world
my self
my god
ceases
to blow
in
the wind
F 16s
and biplanes soar
but
in the lull
between
the roar
the clouds
keep on
performing
alone
hair pulled
back tight
against her
sharp features
eyes deep black
thin as the rest
of her
a flower dress
hangs loosely
on her eating
breakfast with a grey
plastic bag close to her
into
which she keeps
fishing for God
knows what
dropping her twisted
napkin from her lips
she’s gone in
a shuffle
of slap bottom shoes