Now I Understand

Painting by Jack Reilly.


Now I Understand

Something was pouring out.
Filling the field and making it vacant.
A wind blowing them sideways
as they moved forward. The crying
as before. Suddenly I understood
why they left the empty bowls
on the table, in the empty hut
overlooking the sea.
And knew the meaning
of the heron breaking branches,
spreading his wings in order to rise up
out of the dark woods into the night sky.
I understood about the lovers
and the river in January.
Heard the crying out as a battlement,
of greatness, and then the dying began.
The height of passion. Saw the breaking
of the moon and the shattering of the sun.
Believed in the miracle
because of the half heard
and the other half seen.
How they ranged and how they fed.
Let loose their cries.
One could call it
the agony in the garden,
or the paradise, depending on whether
the joy was at the beginning, or after.


Linda Gregg

Posted over on Poets.Org