There is no New Thing Under the Sun

i'm not one to post someone else's feelings verbatim
but i come back to this poem time and again.
and i apologize if i butchered the typography

The Apple Tree in November Twilight can Sleep Now

her journey over for a season

(she did not seem to be moving, but she was).

With her humming with bees I followed her all the way.

First the girl averting her gaze, ashamed,

then her infatuation in April and the shawl of blossoms,

ceremony of her long silence after three days of rain.

I remember the dignity of her deliberations,

how she shook day after day when the downpour

insinuated perfect beauty was a waste.

How she appeared in profile, transfiguring light and shade.

Then the sudden coming together under cover of night,

which I missed (but imagine against her wishes),

withdrawal into contemplation, a windless shape-blameless.

The worry. And her giving birth.

And the pride she surely took in holding on

whisperings untranslatable to the visitor in his leather jacket

who stared up at her. What have you loved?

Where are the words for what you have done so skillfully?

I have learned purpose and endured.

--Dennis Sampson

believing that He who has begun a good work
will be faithful to complete it, in spite of me. amen.

chris h