Delights & Shadows

by Ted Kooser

Walking on Tiptoe Long ago we quit lifting our heels like the others — horse, dog, and tiger — though we thrill to their speed as they flee. Even the mouse bearing the great weight of a nugget of dog food is enviably graceful. There is little spring to our walk, we are so burdened with responsibility, all of the disciplinary actions that have fallen to us, the punishments, the killings, and all with our feet bound stiff in the skins of the conquered. But sometimes, in the early hours, we can feel what it must have been like to be one of them, up on our toes, stealing past doors where others are sleeping, and suddenly able to see in the dark.

Grace fills the clean mold of this moment and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

A Winter Morning A farmhouse window far back from the highway speaks to the darkness in a small, sure voice. Against this stillness, only a kettle’s whisper, and against the starry cold, one small blue ring of flame.

A Glimpse of the Eternal Just now, a sparrow lighted on a pine bough right outside my bedroom window and a puff of yellow pollen flew away.

A Happy Birthday This evening, I sat by an open window and read till the light was gone and the book was no more than a part of the darkness. I could easily have switched on a lamp, but I wanted to ride this day down into night, to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page with the pale gray ghost of my hand.