Searching for words
to express the delusion
of longing – its promise
and long fall into sadness
as the sun lowers
behind a house and a fence
as a spider clings to a web
on the window above a shelf
on which resides Maxwell’s
“On Poetry.”

Yet! Here are words, now
in awakening present!
Not longing fulfilled
but me in lamplight
with the darkening sky
and the spider who moves
with the breeze flowing
through the open summer window.

Portland, Oregon – August 23, 2016

Title is from the Tao Te Ching, #1, translation by the Rev. Dr. Raymond B. Blakney, 1955.