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The Gem

 

Darkness relents, and dawn

fingers shadowy lawn

and finds a gem of dew

and fills it with sky-blue.

 

Strange that a thing so small

has room to mirror all:

the house inside the grass,

trees, me, shadows that pass.

 

How was this thing achieved?

Sun sank; and earth conceived

in shadow, turned from light,

and the drop grew all night

 

and looks now at the sun—

who sees what the dark's done

and beats down on the lawn

until her gem is gone.

 

Richard Moore

 

From A Question of Survival, University of Georgia Press, © 1971.  Originally
printed in the Saturday Review.  Reprinted by permission of the author.

Oriental rug graphic by
Jade Leaves Designs


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