Must and Want

journal page – 9/18/07
Lately my days slip by, spent juggling obligations and desires… five paintings by November, student papers that multiply like the loaves and fishes, closets and drawers in disarray, workshops and outings, a few pages of a book before bed, time to spend with the one I love… the tug and pull between must and want… and even when I’m tired and on the verge of being unreasonably cranky, I know that it’s all good. It’s all good.

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

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 (1947 – )