Oasis

The terms of the analogy are strained –

And that is as it should be, for the world

Is nothing but the world and things are called

By names they cannot answer to. Constrained

By what I am to name things, when I see

How beauty proper to a watered place

Extends beyond it to this wilderness,

I call this paradise, which it can’t be.

And it is paradise I think of too

When your cool body’s fluency and grace

Come near, and nearer, in this desert place

As if the Lord were beckoning through you –

     Though God is darkest when his creatures bless

     And paradise is of the wilderness.