I
Humanness: name for wavering possession,
still undetermined term of happiness:
is it inhuman that there went to fashion
this piece of lace-work’s fine enwovenness
two eyes? – Do you regret their absentness?
You long-departed and at last benighted,
is all your bliss within this thing, where went,
as between trunk and bark, your lofty-flighted
feeling in magical diminishment?
Through some small chink in destiny, some gaping,
you drew your soul from temporality;
and it’s so present in this airy shaping,
I have to smile at the expediency.
II
And if one day our doing and our ado’s
and all that happens to us should appear
trivial and strange, and it were far from clear
why we should struggle out of children’s shoes
merely for that – would not, perhaps this run
of yellowed lace, this finely woven length
of flowery lace, then have sufficient strength
to keep us here? For look, it all got done.
A life perhaps was slighted, who can know?
A chance of happiness let slip – yet, spite
of all, there still emerged, however slow,
this thing, not easier than life, but quite
perfect, and, oh, so beautiful – as though
now were no more too soon for smiles and flight.