Robert Hass “Measure” (on writing)

Recurrences.

Coppery light hesitates

again in the small-leaved

Japanese plum. Summer

and sunset, the peace

of the writing desk

and the habitual peace

of writing, these things

form an order I only

belong to in the idleness

of attention. Last light

rims the blue mountain

and I almost glimpse

what I was born to,

not so much in the sunlight

or the plum tree

as in the pulse

that forms these lines.

Robert Hass, “Measure” from