Ah, small things.
You sit waiting around corners.
At the same time I sit in the rain,
bidding the birds to my camera’s lens.
And counting tuis,
adept at flitting
between branches just out of range.
At the same time the wind
sends shaken blossoms to the ground,
and a truck passes in its swift breeze.
At the same time I think
of what can’t be captured –
birds the same colour as the trees,
and quick as the sun chasing clouds.
You, little things, find me.
More constant than the birds
whose song rise and ebb.
And faithfully blooming
in both sunshine and shade.
Perhaps you’ll forgive my ingratitude.
But I don’t think my notice
is of any consequence to you,
who keeps smiling without any audience,
neither amused or dismayed.
What can we learn from you?
You, who wait so concentratedly
while we keep searching,
and who sees how the birds return
upon our turning away.
I think perhaps it’s as Rilke has said,
that there is no place that does not see us.
That I, observing, hardly know how I sit here
found.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
September 2021
Living Tree Poetry 