Did you ever build a tunnel
through a mow of new mown hay?

Have you ever run barefooted
through the dew at dusk of day?

Have you fingered funny folk
on a table that was dusty?

Did you ever catch red rain
in a tin can that was rusty?

Did you ever pick blackberries
til your pail was dark and filled,
and then trip in a woodchuck hole
to have each last one spilled?

Have you made a cookie man
with wrinkled raisin eyes?

Did you ever serve your Mother
with caked mud that you called pies?

Have you ever scratched cold castles
on a frosted window pane?

Have you ever cramped your neck
for a whirling weathervane?

Have you linked the summer frangrance
of a June day's daisy chain?

Have you ever wandered noplace
in monotony of rain?

Have you felt the warm, silk throbbing
of a sleeping kitten's breast?

Or found the speckled blueness
of a jealous robin's nest?

Haven't you ever? Never? Ever?

Please forgive me if I say,
begin to live, begin to love,
today.

From: Fulfillment - A Book of Verse
by The Religious of the Cenacle
J.S. Paluch Co., Inc. Chicago 1956