Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World

 The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded
 soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and
 simple
As false dawn.

 Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with
 angels.


 Some are in bed-sheets, some are
 in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there
 they are.

Now they are rising together in calm
 swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they
 wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal
 breathing;

 Now they are flying in place,
 conveying
The terrible speed of their
 omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now
 of a sudden
They swoon down in so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.

 The soul shrinks

 From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every
 blessed day,
And cries,
 "Oh, let there be nothing on
 earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising
 steam
And clear dances done in the sight of
 heaven.
"

 Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks
 and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter
 love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns
 and rises,

 "Bring them down from their ruddy
 gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs
 of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be
 undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure
 floating
Of dark habits,
 keeping their difficult
 balance.
"

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