Joan Condon
To Be
Let us go and watch the animals, and allow
something of their cool composure to glide
into our faces, and see our own existence
deep in their eyes, which hold us for a while
then let us go, serenely, without prejudice.
Let the gardener come to us and recite
many flowers; in the small plastic pots
of their meticulous names he brings
some remnant of a hundred fragrances;
the earth and sky live again.
Let birds plunge through intimate space
in which we see all forms intensified,
pure abundance held in memory. Out in the open
we are denied restraint, are winged; we have
no limits, disappear into vastness.
Let us have children, intuitions of the future,
long afternoons, still only growing time
with wide innocent glances; how far it is
from these watched-over creatures to everything
that will, one day, be wonder or destruction.
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