Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
 
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
 
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again
 
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
 
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
 
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--
 
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?



 = Susannah Wood