Even before speech
Revealed your secret,
There was looking.
Even before song
That gave you away,
There was gazing.
The beloved felt
Your eyes upon her;
He dimly understood
Why you looked at him
That way.
Speech
Of the eyes: the stare
And the glimpse.
The glance that lingers.
*
Her eye and my “I”:
Her gazing
Creates me.
His voice and my
Ear—I’m seized
By hearing.
How because
Of the beloved
I come into being.
Under her touch,
All of me shudders.
*
The world looks
In all directions
Like that vase
Of chrysanthemums
On the table.
But the beloved
Looks only at you.
How easy to choose.
Yes, the flowers
Are beautiful
But the beloved’s gaze
Makes you beautiful, too.
__________________________________
From Selected Books of the Beloved, copyright 2022 by Gregory Orr, used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
