Marie Ponsot's "A Rune, Interminable"
Marie Ponsot, who turns 91 this month, still treads with sprightly step as she delivers her incomparable wisdom.
A Rune, Interminable
Low above the moss
a sprig of scarlet berries
soon eaten or blackened
tells time.
Go to a wedding
as to a funeral:
bury the loss.
Go to a funeral
as to a wedding:
marry the loss.
Go to a coming
as to a going:
unhurrying.
Time is winter-green.
Seeds keep time.
Time, so kept, carries us
across to no-time where
no time is lost.
Excerpt from EASY © 2009 by Marie Ponsot. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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