“I have been a stranger in a strange land”, Rita Dove

Life's spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it.
Emily Dickinson

It wasn't bliss. What was bliss   

but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours   

in patter, moving through whole days   

touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite   

housekeeping in a charmed world.   

And yet there was always   

more of the same, all that happiness,   

the aimless Being There.   

So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,   

lingered to look through a pond's restive mirror.   

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,   

pretending he could organize   

what was clearly someone else's chaos.   

That's when she found the tree,   

the dark, crabbed branches   

bearing up such speechless bounty,   

she knew without being told   

this was forbidden. It wasn't   

a question of ownership—   

who could lay claim to   

such maddening perfection?   

And there was no voice in her head,   

no whispered intelligence lurking   

in the leaves—just an ache that grew   

until she knew she'd already lost everything   

except desire, the red heft of it   

warming her outstretched palm.