Sanctity
Whenever I have been
amid the dark hills that have no sorrows
and have listened to the birds
sharing their wisdoms with the stars
I know again
that even the rasped syllables of breath
have little to offer us
compared with that silence
that has no grievances,
compared with the slow progress
of the caterpillar
as he makes his way over a leaf
and I know, of course, that
there is no sacrilege in stone
and that the wisps of clouds
are hardly dynastic in their purposes
or greedy in their peregrinations
I know that nothing of the sort
takes place in the natural world,
which is why I have to come here
to be relieved of self-inflicted sufferings
and take in the air, to sing
with the whispering birds of night
and praise everything that hurts and
soothes us for its own blessed sake.