Simplicity

For E.

Wishing to praise

the simple, the univocal, the one

word that falls like a ripe fruit

into an infinite well,

I watch

that easy old couple, limber

sixty-year-olds,

strolling, maybe just finished jogging,

under the plum trees.

Over their mild

gray heads the air

is pink with blossoms

accomplishing themselves;

under their tan, accomplished Keds

the sidewalk's pink with petals.

She turns to him and speaks, a word

that fills and falls like another petal,

easy, simple:

a word of thirst?-milk? wine?-

a word of love?-good run? -

whatever,

it befalls him

light as the stroke of a branch,

clear as color,

and he nods, smiles.

I want to learn that word, I want

to hold that word under my tongue

like a sip of milk,

I want to inhale that word

the way that gray-haired woman, now,

turns back to the tree

and inhales the lucid perfume

of a blossom that promises

ripeness, night, the sweetness

of the plum.