Standing in a bookstore (one of my favorite bookstores in one of my favorite towns) this evening reading Jane Kenyon‘s Constance–specifically Having it Out with Melancholy. It was one of those perfect reading moments when everything else is gone.
my favorite bit, I think, has to be the last section:
9 WOOD THRUSH
High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcomeby ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.
myfanwy collins 