20
Samuel
All day I am before the altar
and at night sleep beside it;
I think in psalms, my mind a psalter.
I sit in the temple. From inside it
I see the smoke eddy in the wind;
now and then a leaf will ride it
upward and when the leaf has spinned
its moment, the wind hides it.
Against their hurly-burly
I shut the window of my mind,
and the world at the winds’ will,
find myself calm and still.

The days in this room become precious to others also,
as the seed hidden in the earth becomes a tree,
as the secret joy of the bride and her husband becomes a man.

Whatever unfriendly stars and comets do,
whatever stormy heavens are unfurled,
my spirit be like fire in this, too,
that all the straws and rubbish of the world
only feed its flame.

The seasons change.
That is change enough.
Chance planted me beside a stream of water;
content. I serve the land,
whoever lives here and whoever passes.