ON A MOMENT’S LOAN

Dew fresh,
the world is all brand-new,
air-rippled, trembling, crystal-blue.
Beneath the pine,
stand upright, straight,
brown cones
that fell and tumbled down.

Yet now it seems as if they’d grown
in rows of circles ’round the stem,
grown
as if planted there by hand,
grown
from pine needle cushioned ground,
as if they’re rooted there. I’ve found
in nature’s spontaneity
true order,
unsurpassed and free
of my own limiting ideas,
but limitless.

It now appears as if up high
a leaf umbrella shades the sky.
A maple arch forms its own dome
of a cathedral, Gothic style,
which, for a while,
contains my table, bench and chair.
Its walls are made of air on air.

In happiness I close my eyes.
To my surprise
I visit on a moment’s loan my very own
and just as vast, or vaster yet,
dear sunshine-dappled inner home.

June 1986