John Berger
Here, at rest,
the honey in the honeycomb.
A daylit sliver of silver moon.
A whiff of campfire smoke from a distance
faintly hinting at cinnamon.
Bees busy with pollen.
Sunlight — which is honey — burning through fog.
Here, the the unmoving, silent center,
of which none should speak —
or write — as not to efface its ineffable,
impossible simplicity.
It's no crime to try. The yearning,
hungry mouth opens
and words long to arrive (like bees)
having travelled so far and so long
into silence.
The best poems say nothing.
They stand open like a chair,
a mountain,
a shirt,
a photograph.
Some stones.
The Substack machine wouldn't let me choose my spacing as I wished.
No matter. I'll accept it as it is.
How many decades have John Berger's words sweetened my life and opened my heart?