63

More restful than sleep is the night-watch:
The moon in its steadfast crossing
And the star that rhymes beneath,
Pulling the mind to the eyes gaze.

As love is better than living, and kindness
Holds the dove to the breast a-flutter
Til day comes a-wonder, bearing the standards
Of those who wander between sleep and waking,

So are the sons and daughters of action
With forces contending til they root the dark
From where it rips what longs and yearns
From the dust of its birth to replanting

Where it yearns despondent for water,
The familiar touch and heat;
Unmothered, it fathers itself
Digging for God-knows-what

Spring, climbing to God-knows-what
Heaven. Some without leaves,
Some bear flowers. Rare
Is the tree that grows fruit

Rarer still the tree that feeds
The whole world, which, as dust
Swallows the pregnant seed
And proceeds from deed to deed

Suffering all to occur and tempts
Nothing but its own, of its own making
And tills with the comb of the seed
The seed itself and wakens,

Bright in the light of its own need
Til showers, and the rainbow feed
The eyes that gazed upon the star
That fixed the moon, then let it go.


© Dan Goorevitch