A Blessing -- James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46481/a-blessing
If I Stepped Out of My Body I might not break into blossom though I am waiting now for the tulip tree outside this window to burst free from its suffocating bark and scream petals pink as the meat inside a woman's bound body -- I hope I shatter instead into mist heady cumulous clouds in air fresh as salt and stitched with starlings insane as spring
Suggested soundtrack: Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, read by Samuel Jackson