Jorie Graham

WHY?

you ask me
again—why
putting your tiny hand on
the not yet

unsheathed
bud on the
rhododendron
and I see

I need to be sky
I need to be soil
there are no words
for why that I

can find fast
enough, why
you say at
the foot of the cherry’s wide

blossomfall
is it dead now why
did it let go, why,
tossed out

into what appears
to be silence
when I say
let’s run the

rain is starting—why
are we lost why did
we just leave
where we just

were why is
everything
so far behind
now as we go on I

see you think
when you reach
me again to ask
why when I say

are you coming now &

you say no,
I want to stay, I want
things to stay, I do
not want to come

away from things—what
is this we are
entering—me taking yr
hand now to speed

our going
as fast as we can in this suddenly
hard rain, yr
hand not letting go

of the rose pebble u found
feeling the first itching of
personal luck as
you now slowly

pocket it thinking
you have taken
with you a piece of
what u could not

leave behind. It is
why we went there
and left there.
It is your why.