Stillness.

Wyeth, Her Room, 1953

MORNING

Look, my love, on the wall, and here, at this Eastern picture.

How still its scene, and neither of sleep nor waking:

No shadow falls from the tree or the golden mountain,

The boats on the glassy lake have no reflection,

No echo would come if you blew a horn in those valleys.

And look away, and move. Or speak, or sing:

And voices of the past murmur among your words,

Under your glance my dead selves quicken and stir,

And a thousand shadows attend where you go.

That is your movement. There is a golden stillness,

Soundless and fathomless, and far beyond it;

When brow on brow, or mouth to mouth assembled,

We lie in the calm of morning. And there, outside us,

The sun moves on, the boat jogs on the lake,

The huntsman calls.

And we lie here, our orient peace awakening,

No echo, and no shadow, and no reflection.

Henry Reed