“Think for just one minute before you write
another word,” writes Milosz.—thought,
the most maligned word, inferior to ecstasy,
superior to feeling, as far as some thinkers go,
and think far less elegant even than thought.
But a good thought can feel like a vernal pool,
the winter’s end, the season warming, and baby
frogs, peepers I think they are called, throbbing
out frog-thoughts, singing flesh, a sound that
feels like the drift and swell of near-epiphany.
Monarch butterflies when they arrive at the sea
after crossing the desert, will rest en-masse on
the current, floating rafts of beauty gathered
unto itself and most of them destined to die,
layers of colorful altruism, beyond all thought—
“As with music,” he continues, “pictures will form.”