My little daughter, with both her hands, is strewing
white sawdust on white birchbark.
The wind is blowing from the southwest. Everything
is suddenly so full of this wind
and of this autumn. It is as if
the movement of the clouds has
at last moved something that until now
did not stir, was in blossom, was lush and green. Everywhere
such clarity that oblivion finds no place.
Barberries on thorny twigs.
Nettles near the barn door already yellow.
But the birchbark and the fresh sawdust
under the saw and in the tiny palm of the child
suddenly so much more white and clean than before.
*