Why, when you enter the room, does my heart <br />turn warm and red, and all those other words <br />grow muffled, as under snow? Why do leaf veins <br />seem to swell with green blood, and the forms <br />of all things become rounder and aglow? Why <br />do the shadow and the echo gain such sudden <br />substance; why does water seem to flow <br />more slowly, birds to consider more closely <br />the cadences of their songs? Why is there <br />sudden, gratuitous artistry in the dried sloe, <br />the crow-feather, the sunlight and cedar cone? <br />Why does the pulse of all run cold when I turn <br />to go? When I step over the rod, why does a poem <br />fall from me like a child of Arianrhod?<br /><br />Giles Watson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/there-is-a-friend-who-sticketh-closer/
