For Ruth

There's a graceful way of doing things. Birch branches

Curve slightly upward; or the wind brings a few

snowflakes down, and then joins the night;

Or you leave me a sprig of chervil and no more.

Each morning we have this new chance.  We can walk

A few steps behind the others down the mountain;

We can enter a conversation as if we were blessed,

Not insisting on our old way of gaining pity.

There's a way you have of knowing what another

May need ahead of time, before the party

Begins, as smoke sometimes disappears

Downward among branches.  And I've learned

From you this new way of letting a poem be.

Robert Bly

from Morning Poems