Gray Weather

It is true that, older than man and ages to outlast him, the Pacific surf Still cheerfully pounds the worn granite drum; But there's no storm; and the birds are still, no song; no kind of excess; Nothing that shines, nothing is dark; There; is neither joy nor grief nor a person, the sun's tooth sheathed in cloud, And life has no more desires than a stone. The stormy conditions of time and change are all abrogated, the essential Violences of survival, pleasure, Love, wrath and pain, and the curious desire of knowing, all perfectly suspended. In the cloudy light, in the timeless quietness, One explores deeper than the nerves or heart of nature, the womb or soul, To the bone, the careless white bone, the excellence.