Blood-letting

Blood-letting

When sorrow came
you lay sidelong in the grass
under an ash whose mosaic leaves
played peek-a-boo with the light;
tossing it from finger to waving finger.

Within the matted grass,
you wondered at ants, toiling incessantly,
grumbling at grains of sand;
while the lake below
danced to the sun's old song
as it shimmered carefree,
aiming each glint like a rod of truth
into misted eyes near filled with tears.
And you thought how that lake
danced with more joy
than you had ever known till then.

So you reflected in quiet mood until,
high above that mournful acre,
the voice of a lark intruded.
And this last exuberance pierced your sorrow.
It knew no other way, for it never understood.

Ah, the things you never understood:
how feathers float where there is no breeze,
how breeze becomes wind
enough to set a cornfield pulsing;
how meadows hum;
how spinneys spin their spell;
and how chance turns everything on its head;
so that yesterday's clear stream
today returns a deluge of mud,
all the detritus of melancholy.

Yes, you let natural wonders crowd
your disillusioned head until the longing
to be so dead as not to feel was tempered.
Earth bled you a little. It was enough.