Briefly It Enters, and Briefly 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 wellhead,
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. . . .

—Jane Kenyon