The Fruit
Martyn Bates, Rainer Maria Rilke
It climbed and climbed from earth invisibly
And kept its secret in the silent stem
And turned in the clear blossom into flame
And then resumed its secrecy
And though a whole long summer fructified
Within that day and night travailing tree
And felt itself as urging instancy
To meet responding space outside
And though it now displays so shiningly
That rondure of completed rest anew
Within the rind it sinks resigningly
Back to the centre it outgrew