Still
I said I will find what is lowly
And put the roots of my identity
Down there:
Each day I’ll wake up
And find the lowly nearby,
A handy focus and reminder,
A ready measure of my significance,
The voice by which I would be heard,
The wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
Freely adopt as my own:
But though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
To give myself to:
Everything is
Magnificent with existence, is in
Surfeit of glory:
Nothing is diminished,
Nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass:
Ah, underneath,
A ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
And said this can be my habitat: but
Nestling in I
Found
Below the brown exterior
Green mechanisms beyond the intellect
Awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
And ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
He had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
Him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
There, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
Though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
In the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
Transfigurations of size and shape and place:
At one sudden point came still,
Stood in wonder:
Moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
With being!
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