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c w hawes

Vastness

I know a man who is beginning to be bent with years. Yet the weight of time seems not to affect him. Within the past year, I have watched him become a man of faith, take a wife, write poetry with a clearer eye for his world, and become a student once again. But the most telling quality about him is the tranquility he radiates. He attributes this to learning how to appreciate simple beauty: the colors and form of a weed, the scarlet sumac covered hill, the rising or setting of the sun and moon, the city lights at night, nuances of taste in successive steepings of green tea, a pipe of tobacco, silence. There is a saying, Man is as vast as he acts. I think my friend has at last become vast.

autumn night
the stars! the stars! always
they’ve been there