St. Jerome in his Study
after Dürer
There is a jar
buried beneath the cloister
with five words I have
kept in my pocket
all my life
solitude and wisdom
light and virtue and
a shadow of pain with thick lips
drinking from a cup
Once in the gardens
I watched a sparrow
carry a blue silence
to the mountains
It was a rosy sorrow
I caught there
an underground rolling
of pure water
life's ever-
lasting dahlia
sacred
How the sunlight
sweetens the room
all I own written in the very boards
what I have given away
what comes to me
The mangled flesh
of fish
in a basket
A weaving staccato
watering my soul
The almond
a taste I will never forget
brown
beautifully simple