The Silken Tent

I said in this week’s column that I'd post the poem I've been trying to memorize for three years so here it is. It’s not only a sonnet – something of a departure for our pal Robert Frost – but it’s also (and more amazingly) all one sentence. For him it’s a tribute to much-loved woman but I like the image itself. Close your eyes and picture the slippery silk of a little tent swaying slightly, held by its delicate cords. Are we all held so lightly here? I think we are, though we like to believe otherwise. Babies know they could fly off at any second which is why they startle so when you unswaddle them; it’s why they love and need the parental hand on them as they lie all trusting and helpless in their cribs:

The Silken Tent

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday, when a sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew, and all its ropes relent

So that in guys it gently sways at ease

And its supporting central cedar pole

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul

Seems to owe naught to any single cord

But strictly held by none is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To everything on earth the compass 'round

And only by one going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.