Life is the Sum of Perishable Things

Life is the sum of perishable things,
The windy grass, the curved and dappled wings,
The day of promise, which was clear and bright,
And the clandestine raptures of the night;
Of books much briefer than the need, and song,
However exquisite, which lasts not long,
And of ourselves, who love but cannot keep
One kiss inviolate from eternal sleep.

All such are petals of the secret flower,
Shed each year and falling hour by hour
Within the haunted garden of the earth
Where joy and sorrow have no birth;
And without these the flower is not seen,
Nor yet will be, nor ever yet has been,
But in their forms perpetually grows,
Shaped as a verse, a symphony, a rose,
A kiss, a thought, a heart that undertakes
To love the beauty that the garden makes:
And only on these surfaces we see
The breathless chasm of eternity.

by Russell Davenport