patience beneath the blue!
Each atom of the silence
knows what it ripens to.
The happy shock will come:
A dove alighting, some
Gentlest nudge, the breeze,
A woman's touch--before
You know it the downpour
has brought you to your knees!
has brought you to your knees!
Let populations be
Crumbled underfoot--
Palm irresistably
Among celestial fruit!
Those hours were not in vain
So long as you retain
A lightness once they're lost
Like one who, thinking, spends
His inmost dividends
To grow at any cost.
((the two final stanzas of James Merrill's
translation of Paul Valery's Palme;
it is this poem which he refers
to in LOST IN TRANSLATION;
it was my mantra many times when
waiting for the subway,
and now I impart it to you)
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