We have seen heaven.
In April 1960,
rending the clouds that were crushing history,
we saw the face of Eternity.

Your face,
that shone for one brief moment,
was our innermost
heart.

Scooping up an armful of heaven's waters
in 1919 we all
washed our faces clean.

In 1894 or so
even in stones and tree stumps,
your faces were all heaven.

Heaven,
you shone bright for a moment then were veiled,
yet every year the flowers
filled the whole landscape.
Sun and harvest and love and labor.

On holidays, limping along in a mountaineer's cap,
I would visit the East Sea,
with its brilliant sandy shores,
or Indian back alleys where pottery was fired.

But they couldn't be found
in the outside world. Bowls, meat,
were nowhere to be found
in the outside world.

Your faces
that had shone for a moment
were Eternity's sky,
our infinitely