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From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,

A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room

And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up

From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That’s all

There was to it. No more than a solemn waking

To brevity, to the lifting and falling away of attention, swiftly,

A time between times, a flowerless funeral. No more than that

Except for the feeling that this piece of the storm,

Which turned into nothing before your eyes, would come back,

That someone years hence, sitting as you are now, might say:

“It’s time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening.”

“A Piece of the Storm” by Mark Strand.

O stormy, stormy world,
The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun’s brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view–
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day’s perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day
No shadow crossed but ours
As through its blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.

“Happiness Makes Up In Height For What It lacks in Length” by Robert Frost.

See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.

We know their fate because we share it.

Were they to grieve for their wilting,

that grief would be ours to feel.

There’s a lightness in things. Only we move forever burdened,

pressing ourselves into everything, obsessed by weight.

How strange and devouring our ways must seem

to those for whom life is enough.

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,

you would come back different to a different day,

moving so easily from that common depth.

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,

all those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,

and you would be one of them.

“Sonnets to Orpheus II, 14″ by Rainer Maria Rilke. [A portion of the original text in German on Instagram.]

All day long we walked in the fields

With our women, suns, and dogs

We played, sang, drank water

Fresh as it sprang from the ages.

In the afternoon we sat for a moment

And we looked deeply into each other’s eyes

A butterfly flew from our hearts

It was whiter

Than the small branch at the tip of our dreams

We knew that it was never to disappear

That it did not remember at all what worms it bore.

At night we lit a fire

And round about it sand:

Fire, lovely fire, do not pity the logs

Fire, lovely fire, do not turn to ash

Fire, lovely fire, burn us, tell us of life.

We tell of life, we take it by the hands

We look into its eyes and it returns our look

And if this which makes us drunk is a magnet, we know it

And if this which gives us pain is bad, we have felt it

We tell of life, we go ahead

And say farewell to its birds, which are migrating.

We are of a good generation.

“All Day Long We Walked in the Fields” by Odysseas Elytis.