Happy National Poetry Day, readers! I know it’s only a UK thing, but since the US doesn’t have one yet (what’s up with that?), I’m celebrating anyway.

Briefly It Enters, Briefly It Speaks

by Jane Kenyon

I am the blossom pressed in a book,

found again after two hundred years….

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper….

When the young girl who starves

sits down to a table

she will sit beside me….

I am food on the prisoner’s plate….

I am water rushing to the well-head,

filling the pitcher until it spills….

I am the patient gardener

of the dry and weedy garden….

I am the stone step,

the latch, and the working hinge….

I am the heart contracted by joy…

the longest hair, white

before the rest….

I am there in the basket of fruit

presented to the widow….

I am the musk rose opening

unattended, the fern on the boggy summit….

I am the one whose love

overcomes you, already with you

when you think to call my name.

You can find this poem in The Boat of Quiet Hours.