the door

a note waterfalls steadily

through us,

just below hearing

or this early light 

streaming through dusty glass:

what enters, enters like that,

unstoppable gift.

and yet there is also the other,

the breath-space held between any call

and its answer--

in the querying

first scuff of footstep,

the wood-owls' repeating,

the two-counting heart:

a little sabbath,

minnow whose brightness silvers past time

the rest note,

unwritten,

hinged between worlds,

that precedes change and allows it.

by jane hirshfield