Beyond Beginnings

How could he later on believe it was the best
time when his wife died unexpectedly
and he wandered every day among the trees, crying
for more than a year? He is still alone and poor
on the island with wild flowers waist-deep
around his stone hut. In June the wind will
praise the barley stretching all the way
to the mountain. Then it will be good
in the harvested fields, with the sun nailed
to the stony earth. Mornings will come and go
in the silence, the moon a heaven mediated
by owls in the dark. Is there a happiness
later on that is neither fierce nor reasonable?
A time when the heart is fresh again, and the time
after that when the heart is ripe? The Aegean
was blue just then at the end of the valley,
and is blue now differently.

--Jack Gilbert