CHILDREN

Seed sitting in the womb of twilight, in the sad
air vibrant with needles of the fountain, fear
grown wind or trees - these as if unreal children, glad
and losing brightness, fruit the soil must bear
small as the ticking of a watch, as silence, move
in what unsure vast envelope of love!

They have been sent, gifts or faint pleading letters (though
to be unopened) into the cold unbiddable night
- the dangerous, the tired time, the dim world of the old:
surely the tree grows weary of its fruit,
the womb of being closed, the child of ripening:
surely the fountain overflows the spring!
						MA'ADI