Meditation Earth is dry and little rain is falling, But legumes and shrub and tree, The light—a sparkling aspen Fastened near the sky! From the minerals hewn from ages planted We go long days like a bird Knotting our frail wings That once grew longest in a tree! My heart beats through these and words With a sight of weeping water and the sun’s gold That bursts through invisibly From hidden lands brought to the table, Each moving through the patterned breath.

• Ezra Pound