Coming up a rise in the trail I spied them,
poised, still life of a dance beginning.
Some stick-straight except for their fiddle heads
bent in a formal bow as if preparing to contradance.
Others, more unfurled, a bit wilder, looser,
looking almost raucous in their heady celebration of
spring.
It is this dance I want to join, moving loose, lanky,
free,
intoxicated by new life, waving wantonly in the spring
breeze.
Tasted heaven many times: these delicacies
Are left over from
some larger party.
--From Tasting Heaven by Robert Bly
If tastes of heaven are the tidbits from a larger party,
then what was the larger version of the soft mist I
enjoyed on my cheeks
this morning? Was it the residue from some heavenly
celebration,
where bottles of champagne erupted to celebrate
the blooming of tulips, or the woven engineering of a
swift’s nest?
I wonder what gets celebrated in heaven.
I imagine the minute, tiny, barely noticed (by us)
events,
fattening buds, pink hue on a cloud, the way
sunlight filters through upon forest floor,
the first breath drawn by a foal—these
surely elicit uproarious response.
If I could count the misty drips as they touch my skin,
each drop a celebration to last a lifetime, ah,
this is a foretaste of eternity!
