These two poems by Jane Kenyon were recently featured in issues of Writer’s Almanac and I couldn’t help but reprint them here. Kenyon writes with such beauty and lucid tenderness about what it is to live fully in this world and to step over into the world beyond. Her poems ring as that kind of truth that moves beyond all boundaries of cultures, faiths and generations.

For more information on Jane Kenyon and her poetry you can CLICK HERE.

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 starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me… .

I am food on the prisoner’s plate… .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills… .

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden… .

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge… .

I am the heart contracted by joy… .
the longest hair, white
before the rest… .
I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow… .

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit… .

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name…

Jane Kenyon
Collected Poems
Graywolf Press, Publishers
 

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 of course
no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.

Jane Kenyon
Constance
Gray Wolf Press, Publishers