Sabbath

No, nothing will do just now 
            but to sit beneath a mesquite tree 
            in a dry creek bed and look long at cactus. 
            The saguaro does not sway or bend or mark the breeze.
            It has no use. It simply is. 
            I can look at it until time is lost 
            and it will not move. 

No, I will not leave just now. 
            Here the bow is not cracked. 
            Here nothing is drawn taut. 
            I must get away from every place 
            where people have sold soap and automobiles 
            and have drawn themselves taut. 

No one has seen a cactus move. 
            Even its birth did not part the womb of stillness. 
            I will intrude upon its world of being. 
            I will sit on earth prepared by long dying 
            and wonder what people mean when they say, 
            “What time is it?” 

The air about saguaro is unmarred 
            by talk of “duty,” or “responsibility,” or “obligation.”
            The saguaro is God’s servant. 
            It keeps the ancient law of the Sabbath: 
            “On this day thou shalt do no work, 
            neither anything respectable, 
            all day long.”