How can you stand it—looking at things? <br /> For example, the geranium <br /> <br />out on the patio, the single pink <br />blossom in the sun? Or stand the sunlight <br />moving through it, <br /> <br />illuminating, holding the flower open like a high <br />clear note, an ecstatic <br />widening <br /> <br />which arrives, arrives. What <br />do you dowith it? While the shrubs and the lowest <br />overhanging leaves <br /> <br />lift slightly in the wind, the blossom <br /> <br />doesn't move. It's the object <br />of affection, and this is how <br />it hurts you: <br /> <br />by holding the note open— <br /> <br />Past the front of the apartment, traffic goes by: <br />one truck, then another <br /> <br />comes on, disappears. And I have <br /> <br />the blossom in my vision— <br /> sunlight, like vision, <br />making clear the tiniest <br /> <br />hidden veins. I don't know why <br />I should be here, alive <br /> <br />and having to see this, this bright thing <br />living in time <br /> <br />or have to see it later, at the end <br />of the afternoon, when the sun's <br /> <br />lower, its light diagonal across the pot, <br /> its light then pulling away <br />across the mossed brick <br /> <br />like a wave, only slower, <br />slower. The blossom is still pink, <br />but no longer <br /> <br />brilliant. I'll go back <br />into the kitchen. But you, are you stronger than I? Can you <br /> stay in love with it? Make promises, <br /> <br />marry it? Are you so sure <br />of your position in the world?<br /><br />Kate Northrop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-geranium-2/
