Happiness (3)

The moment you turned to me on W. 4th St.
Your gentleness to me

The hard winter grass here under my shoes
The frost

I knelt in the frost to your parents

                                                              The warm
light on the right hand side of your face
The light on the Buddha's eyelids

I knelt to my parents
Their suffering       How

much sleep there was in sleep       How no
suffering is lost

-- Jean Valentine
Door in the Mountain: New & Collected Poems