Fruit-Gathering

Chapter 23: XXII

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A sequence of short lyric poems meditates on devotion, longing, and the soul's passage from youthful abundance to mature offering. Using natural and seasonal imagery—fruit, flowers, river, wind—the poems describe inner movement toward a beloved or master, the shedding of social honors and possessions, and the readiness to set forth on a spiritual journey. Stylistically spare and intimate, the verses alternate tender longing, parablelike episodes, and exhortations to openness, emphasizing surrender, inward illumination, and the simple act of giving.

XXII

This autumn morning is tired with excess of light, and if your songs grow fitful and languid give me your flute awhile.

I shall but play with it as the whim takes me,—now take it on my lap, now touch it with my lips, now keep it by my side on the grass.

But in the solemn evening stillness I shall gather flowers, to deck it with wreaths, I shall fill it with fragrance; I shall worship it with the lighted lamp.

Then at night I shall come to you and give you back your flute.

You will play on it the music of midnight when the lonely crescent moon wanders among the stars.