I like light from one light in the book room late

That clears and quiets all and stands all straight,

Saying, This is what you meant, it was right to wait.

I need to be alone, one in the house for an hour alone.

Who but wishes sometime to be quiet, lie still, be stone?

And of that nothing nothing be said and nothing known.

I like flowers and voices flowing, but not all flowers.

Best the full peonies and dark autumn blooms, and ours

For words, with some that will praise poetry's powers.

The flood of that crimson-petalled flower's heart

Into the voices of these voices mingling is an art

Like love, like a music, made so in air without hurt.

Therefore I read the great or anonymous growing minds.

I like the blunt beauty of the exact word truth finds

For terror, love, fact, in any language and of all kinds.

Sing of what Hopkins, Brooke, and Whitman sang of: things:

Hammers, gears, hoes, knives. Try as I try to say wings:

The way a bird in a poem wonders, rushes, and hangs.

So wishing you the surest nearest happiness I know:

Use of the skill you have, oh blaze, oh blow!

Warm the world doing the one thing you can do.