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Jane Hirshfield: "The Promise" Mysteriously they entered, those few minutes.
Mysteriously, they left.
As if the great dog of confusion guarding my heart,
who is always sleepless, suddenly slept.
It was not any awakening of the large, not so much as that,
only a stepping back from the petty.
I gazed at the range of blue mountains,
I drank from the stream. Tossed in a small stone from the bank.
Whatever direction the fates of my life might travel, I trusted.
Even the greedy direction, even the grieving, trusted.
There was nothing left to be saved from, bliss nor danger.
The dog's tail wagged a little in his dream. "The Promise" by Jane Hirshfield, from After: Poems. © HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, found at this link (originally color).

Posted by Phyllis Cole-Dai on 2/01/2014