Jane Kenyon

Dutch Interiors

Christ has been done to death In the cold reaches of northern Europe A thousand thousand times. Suddenly bread And cheese appear on a plate Beside a gleaming pewter beaker of beer. Now tell

Happiness

There’s just no accounting for happiness, Or the way it turns up like a prodigal Who comes back to the dust at your feet Having squandered a fortune far away. And how can you

Biscuit

The dog has cleaned his bowl And his reward is a biscuit, Which I put in his mouth Like a priest offering the host. I can’t bear that trusting face! He asks for bread,

February: Thinking of Flowers

Now wind torments the field, Turning the white surface back On itself, back and back on itself, Like an animal licking a wound. Nothing but white the air, the light; Only one brown milkweed

Finding A Long Gray Hair

I scrub the long floorboards In the kitchen, repeating The motions of other women Who have lived in this house. And when I find a long gray hair Floating in the pail, I feel

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book, Found again after two hundred years. . . . I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . . When the young girl who

Wash

All day the blanket snapped and swelled On the line, roused by a hot spring wind…. From there it witnessed the first sparrow, Early flies lifting their sticky feet, And a green haze on

Twilight: After Haying

Yes, long shadows go out From the bales; and yes, the soul Must part from the body: What else could it do? The men sprawl near the baler, Too tired to leave the field.

Otherwise

I got out of bed On two strong legs. It might have been Otherwise. I ate Cereal, sweet Milk, ripe, flawless Peach. It might Have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill To the

Having it Out with Melancholy

1FROM THE NURSERY When I was born, you waited Behind a pile of linen in the nursery, And when we were alone, you lay down On top of me, pressing The bile of desolation

The Suitor

We lie back to back. Curtains Lift and fall, Like the chest of someone sleeping. Wind moves the leaves of the box elder; They show their light undersides, Turning all at once Like a

Notes from the Other Side

I divested myself of despair And fear when I came here. Now there is no more catching One’s own eye in the mirror, There are no bad books, no plastic, No insurance premiums, and

The Blue Bowl

Like primitives we buried the cat With his bowl. Bare-handed We scraped sand and gravel Back into the hole. They fell with a hiss And thud on his side, On his long red fur,

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon Shine through chinks in the barn, moving Up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing As a woman takes up her needles