The Quick Still Center

Sun brightens the mating cardinals,
And sparrow shells fall empty to ground;
Day beginning in the sky Springs up like a weed; rye,
Ripened, levels the winter galls.
The seed gives to the stem’s hour,
The immaculate moment to time In its grey-petaled mournful flight Across the pastures bluet bright The wild cress acres to deflower.
Summer warms the gourds to grow,
And will, at ending, break them: life Almost by living overlain.
Trees let go their leaves in rain,
The earth forsakes her grass in snow.
The seasons’ coming and retreating In time, the seed’s immediacy,
The quick still center fail to kill: Be breath in breathing lost, it still Is source of that airy repeating.