Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay."

     Theodore Roethke, "I Knew A Woman"

No reason to keep her but my own need to,

She was old in her bones, and lovely too, in

The way Roethke knew her who taught him

To dance, this old mare who can barely walk,

But does amble slowly from the far edge of

The pasture to where I come every evening

To lean against the fence, neither of us any

Longer head-strong but she head-shy, her

Unbridled nodding head most always bowed,

As though the weight of all her years were

Carried not in her bones but there behind

Her huge limpid eyes that, when she looks

Aside, are milky pools, and not with moon-

Light.  I hold out to her the apple and she

Takes it not with her teeth but lips more

Delicate than any woman's I have known,

Bites it in half, the other half falling to

The ground, and I pick it up because she

Cannot see it in the fading light, offer it

To her, a communion given and received,

Then lowers her head to the water trough

Where a dark sheen of midges unsettles

As she drinks and settles again when she

Lifts her head, water dripping from her

Gray chin, and for one moment she closes

Her eyes, holds her head high, as though

The apple and water were host, the most

Precious gifts of grace she has ever known;

In that moment holy and human reconciled.