We walked down the path to breakfast.
The morning swung open like an iron gate.

Long ago, someone
told me: avoid or.

Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—

It is not this world, then, to blame, with its red
and blue stars, yellow pears, green apples
that carry a scent which can move you to tears.

More and more creased each year, worn paper thin,
and still it longs for them all.

These mail-ordered tulips,
shockingly gaudy,
open and close, re-open, re-close,

Here, where the rivers dredge upthe very stone of Heaven, we name its colors—muttonfat jade, kingfisher jade, jade of appleskin green.

The windows stream with fish,
the gold luck of carp,
the tiny silver luck of minnows,
while the earth gives back her wealth

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

Only if I move my arm a certain way,
it comes back.
Or the way the light bends in the trees