Summers and Springs

(The First Steps by Jean-François Millet, 1814–1875,
French painter)

Insight can come upon us in a flash.

from SUMMERS AND SPRINGS

God has left us — I felt it clearly
digging the earth around a rhubarb plant.
It was black and moist. I don’t know where he is,
only a shelf full of sacred books remains of him,
a couple of wax candles, a prayer wheel and a little bell.
Coming back to the house I thought
there might still be something — the smell of lilac and honeysuckle.
Then suddenly I imagined a child’s face
there, on the other side, in eternity
looking here into time, regarding wide-eyed
our comings, goings and doings in this time-aquarium
under the light of the sun going down
and falling asleep under a water-lily leaf
somewhere far away in the west.

~ Jaan Kaplinski, born 1941, Estonian poet and translator