When he opens his eyes he gives to what he gazes at the recognition no look ever before granted it. It becomes a word. - Denise Levertov

Perhaps he will not return. But what we have lived
comes back to us. We see more. We feel, as our rings increase,
something that lifts our branches, that stretches our furthest leaf-tips
further.

And we,
frightened, bored, wanting
only to sleep till catastrophe
has raged, clashed, seethed and gone by without us,
wanting then
to awaken in quietude without remembrance of agony,

we who in shamefaced private hope
had looked to be plucked from fire and given
a bliss we deserved for having imagined it,

is it implied that we
must protect this perversely weak
animal, whose muzzle’s nudgings
suppose there is milk to be found in us?
Must hold to our icy hearts
a shivering God?

You are the stream, the fish, the light, the pulsing shadow. You the unchanging presence, in whom all moves and changes. How can I focus my flickering, perceive at the fountain's heart the sapphire I know is there?