You are not beautiful, exactly.

You are beautiful, inexactly.

You let a weed grow by the mulberry

and a mulberry grow by the house.

So close, in the personal quiet

of a windy night, it brushes the wall

and sweeps away the day till we sleep.

A child said it, and it seemed true:

“Things that are lost are all equal.”

But it isn’t true. If I lost you,

the air wouldn’t move, nor the tree grow.

Someone would pull the weed, my flower.

The quiet wouldn’t be yours. If I lost you,

I’d have to ask the grass to let me sleep.

—Marvin Bell