Jane Kenyon Poems

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
...

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.
...

1FROM THE NURSERY


When I was born, you waited
...

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
...

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . .
...

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
...

We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
...

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
...

I scrub the long floorboards
in the kitchen, repeating
the motions of other women
who have lived in this house.
...

The dog has cleaned his bowl
and his reward is a biscuit,
which I put in his mouth
like a priest offering the host.
...