Jane Hirshfield: "The Kingdom"

At times

the heart

stands back

and looks at the body,

looks at the mind,

as a lion

quietly looks

at the not-quite-itself,

not-quite-another,

moving of shadows and grass.

Wary, but with interest,

considers its kingdom.

Then seeing

all that will be,

heart once again enters—

enters hunger, enters sorrow,

enters finally losing it all.

To know, if nothing else,

what it once owned.

"The Kingdom" by Jane Hirshfield. Text as published in The October Palace: Poems (Harper Perennial, 1994).  

Art credit: Untitled photograph by © Scott W. Rouse.