The Passage of Time

Today I find myself thinking of two poems by the late Jane Kenyon. They’ve both been rolling around in my mind for a day or two now.

There are times in life when to simply wait is a great virtue. There are other times, however, when by waiting we lose “what might have been”—the dream, the hope, the aspiration—and thus are born regrets.

Some of the greatest regrets only become apparent when we realize time is inevitably, relentlessly slipping away. ‘The Pear’ puts me in mind of the passage of time.

Without further comment, the second poem ‘Heavy Summer Rain,’ touches me in it’s beauty and pathos.

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The Pear

There is a moment in middle age
when you grow bored, angered
by your middling mind,
afraid.

That day the sun
burns hot and bright,
making you more desolate.

It happens subtly, as when a pear
spoils from the inside out,
and you may not be aware
until things have gone too far.

Jane Kenyon

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Heavy Summer Rain

The grasses in the field have toppled,
and in places it seems that a large, now
absent, animal must have passed the night.
The hay will right itself if the day

turns dry. I miss you steadily, painfully.
None of your blustering entrances
or exits, doors swinging wildly
on their hinges, or your huge unconscious
sighs when you read something sad,
like Henry Adams’s letters from Japan,
where he traveled after Clover died.

Everything blooming bows down in the rain:
white irises, red peonies; and the poppies
with their black and secret centers
lie shattered on the lawn.

Jane Kenyon