Jeff Burt

If you would spring from your bed
and brush your teeth and wash your face

and put on plain white cotton socks
and walk in the sunshine

and climb the bank of the creek
and place a footprint deep in the loam

and kick the leaves and grab the grass
and pat the drooling retriever

and chat with the following crows
and browse the woods for blackberries

and pluck a stem of the wild sweet pea
and taste the texture of the plum

by altering the shape of the plum with your teeth,
its property made manifest by proportion,

and like papillae drink the light cupped in poppies
you would know, like a lake,

when the sun pours through it,
how evenly and often grace may enter.