Sunday Morning

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from beauty. This is how we spend our seasons. This is why we abandon the notion That in our experiments we enhance Life’s inevitability, to some measure. Those that were wise, those that were successful, They spent their summers waiting to learn The joy of corruption when it befell The chill of autumn’s songs. It’s always been assumed that we must realize Our totality, respond to all things in beauty, Life that breathes within the few small things And then upon their admit of margin. Beyond the beauty of our fruits There comes a kindness, Our reward from the labor, joy Of summer yield, sweet bounty which gives To body and to soul, to be and to dwell In that beauty made cumulative and bright.

• Wallace Stevens