Not Yet.

By alison July 23, 2007 2 Comments 1 Min Read

Thinking6

Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out of the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch –
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.

Jane Hirshfield.

2 Comments

  1. Gena says:

    I so relate to those words,Lovely, thank you for this Alison.

  2. This is a wonderful poem. Any chance I can post in on my blog? Please send me an e-mail if so.
    I really love what you've done with this blog, it's very interesting and creative.

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