Rural Reflections

By Adrienne Rich

This is the grass your feet are planted on.

You paint it orange or you sing it green,

But you have never found

A way to make the grass mean what you mean.

 

A cloud can be whatever you intend:

Ostrich or leaning tower or staring eye.

But you have never found

A cloud sufficient to express the sky.

 

Get out there with your splendid expertise;

Raymond who cuts the meadow does not less.

Inhuman nature says:

Inhuman patience is the true success.

 

Human impatience trips you as you run;

Stand still and you must lie.

It is the grass that cuts the mower down;

It is the cloud that swallows up the sky.