Kay Ryan (b.1945)
Patience
Patience is wider
than one once envisioned,
with ribbons of rivers
and distant ranges
and tasks undertaken
and finished with modest
relish by natives
in their native dress.
Who would have
guessed it possible
that waiting is
sustainable— a place
with its own harvests.
Or that in time's
fullness the diamonds
of patience couldn't be
distinguished from
the genuine in
brilliance or hardness.
Kay Ryan (b.1945) is an original and award-winning American poet, whose prizes include the Pulitzer for her book The Best of It in 2010, awards from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She has received the Union League Poetry Prize and the Maurice English Poetry Award, as well as the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
Selected by Amy Frykholm: amy@journeywithjesus.net
