A Poem for a Thursday #323

Jane Kenyon wrote four volumes of poetry and was New Hampshire’s poet laureate at the time of her death. Her poetry was described as “acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies.”

We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling 
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.

The Suitor
Jane Kenyon