Ruth Stone




Wild Asters

I am here to worship the blue
asters along the brook;
not to carry pollen on my legs,  
or rub strutted wings
in mindless sucking;
but to feel with my eyes
the loss of you and me,
not in the powdered mildew
that spreads from leaf to leaf,
but in the glorious absence of grief
to see what was not meant to be seen,
the clusters, the aggregate, the undenying multiplicity.