Member Poem

The quality of light in a Shaker building
 
 
If even in the light we grope
toward separate entrances and the sun
drapes our feet, in the lacquered
wood carding room under the vented
whale oil lamp, who can blame us
collecting the dried leaves of unknown
herbs—to match somehow with labels
stamped by unknown Shaker hands—admiring
the spare lines of pegs, level on each,
above the bed ‘for sleeping straight without
talk’, and the windows set large and deep,
with convenient thumbscrews to change
the height, a spittoon, a tin candlestick,
oaken drawers, the deep calm grain
of the druid’s tree, and light, always
that marvelous gray white light
as if coming from down the long polished
hallway crowded with dark, cloaked
mercantile farmers, men here,
women there, never touching,
miraculously, clothes never brushing,
strands of hair never falling
on one another’s brow, never
the looks that touch the skin,
and even dancing, they remain
still toward their separate exits,
down the sturdy, firm wood steps—
who can blame us as we ask
what kind of room this light
makes, a cell of the Lord’s,
or of some man’s measured mind.