The ruminant, reason, chews a poisoned cud. - Theodore Roethke

All lovers live by longing, and endure:
Summon a vision and declare it pure.

Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

To stare into the after-light, the glitter left on the lake's surface,
When the sun has fallen behind a wooded island;
To follow the drips sliding from a lifted oar
Held up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward;
To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing.