Borrowing - Elizabeth Herron

[Larry Robinson]

Borrowing

What do we own after all in this life?

Shards of the moon, a shudder of pearl 

through oak leaves wrestling with the wind, 

its light borrowed, as our own hearth fires, 

from the sun.

Wouldn’t it be better if from the beginning

we learned the truth – that all is lent,

that only our souls belong to us, and they, too,

only for the lease-hold of our days,

and little we know that number or what comes after.

Astonishing in sunlight, the lilies have split their long buds

to open each separate petal -- butter yellow blossoms

ignited like the moon, as if from within. 

Remember spring’s first grass? 

The same impossible incandescence 

we once held and now must bring forth from within

to burnish and give unto others – slyly

and without effort, assuming another purpose – light

escaping everywhere -- in the bodhisattva who passes 

no judgment, the old horse alone in the field, or the man

in Tianamen Square, side-stepping to stay in the path

of the tank. Light, the flood of it! Brief 

and unforgettable -- the broken moon, the lilies of the field.

	- Elizabeth Herron