An Offer, A Wish (A Paradelle*) Poem by Ben Gieske

What has this life to offer you? –––
What has this life to offer you? –––
A wish I believe not for myself but for you.
A wish I believe not for myself but for you.

This wish I for myself offer to you.
For a life has not but what you believe.

In the seed you shall find the tree.
In the seed you shall find the tree.
Nothing grows but from a beginning.
Nothing grows but from a beginning.

A tree shall grow from the seed.
But you find nothing in the beginning.

Water spills out of this hand.
Water spills out of this hand.
You know not whence it comes nor where it ends.
You know not whence it comes nor where it ends.

Know you not whence water comes nor
Where this hand, ends of it, spills it out?

This seed has a beginning in the wish
To believe what a life shall offer for you.
Water comes, not I nor out of myself;
It spills but for you.
The tree, whence this hand you know,
Grows from nothing, ends but not where you find it.

- Dec.28,2007


* The Paradelle is a French fixed form first appearing in the 11th century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only those words.