"Measure," by Robert Hass

"Dusk Light," by Sandy Dooley

Measure
by Robert Hass

Recurrences.
Coppery light hesitates  
again in the small-leaved

Japanese plum. Summer  
and sunset, the peace  
of the writing desk

and the habitual peace  
of writing, these things  
form an order I only

belong to in the idleness  
of attention. Last light  
rims the blue mountain

and I almost glimpse  
what I was born to,
not so much in the sunlight

or the plum tree  
as in the pulse
that forms these lines.

[Image above by Sandy Dooley]

[Poem via the Poetry Foundation]