In Bloom, Where the Meadow Rises

Nathaniel Perry

Do you remember when the sky burned down 

 its wick of light as an April cold came on 

 the evening of your fifth day in the world? 

 Of course you don't, you couldn't even hold 

 your head up yet, much less begin to think 

 to hold one evening's ash inside, like a drink 

 held up to the sun, trapping and clutching the light. 

 But I wonder sometimes if within the slighter 

 corners of your mind you've held a hint of it, 

 the light I saw beyond the trees which split 

 the view from our rented front porch, while you 

 slept, swaddled as if in song, through 

 the louder sleep of your mother beside you. Rache, 

 if you can find that evening, which is stationed 

 in my chest, inside you now, I swear it will 

 get you somewhere, across a field so filled 

 with snow the sky and ground are one, across 

 a field so bleached with drought the giant cross 

 of shadows from the pines is friction（摩擦力） enough 

 to set the day on fire. You'll come, rough 

 in your heart, to the edges of those fields and be lifted 

 just a fraction of an inch by the gift 

 of the sky's old light in you. It will remind 

 you to invite yourself, the whole of your mind, 

 the whole history of your self along across 

 the grass. If you see yourself you can't be lost; 

 though I may lose sight of you against the sky, 

 or in the vetch（野豌豆，巢菜）, in bloom, where the meadow rises.