One of the joys of being on vacation is the blissful leisure of reading. Often, I have a stack of novels in my vacation queue, but on this particular week of break from my professional life, poems are what seems to be drawing me in.

This morning, Jane Kenyon’s poem was echoing in my mind, so I flipped through my books until I found it. This imagery haunts me every time I read it. It is filled with moments of recognition…small points of light…the ordinary, daily touches of the divine.

I thought I would share it 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