He that Regardeth the Clouds Shall Not Reap
for Elizabeth Jennings

To have been saved so many times so many ways

By a child somersaulting under a statue of Hercules

By light that July across an Iron Muse's face

By Otium Divos Rogat and Go Down to Egypt Land

By an old woman's smile in the street

After days I could not write or read or speak

That carriage of laughing nuns between Milan and Bergamo

That wall of chattering finches in Daphne

That time the car swerved into hawthorn

By the girl who suddenly burst out laughing in the airport

After we'd been eight hours in the heat without food

By Siena always and that dancer in Pisa

At any time so many times always so many ways

By my mother with her hands on my shoulders that evening

By her laughter always by the night we saw the river

Dry to white light just by our walking by it

By Delphi Assisi Ajanta sacred places where for days

I have known and remembered nothing but peace

To have been saved so many times so many ways

Still to feel lonely wasted frozen abandoned

Never enough faith never enough patience

Never enough calm never enough humour quite

(the mind too bitter, the hands too greedy) --

Shall I never learn to bless my helplessness?

A friend sent me this poem when I needed it.