See among the broken branches,
See amidst the withered stalks;
See below the rotting roots, the
Cut-down trunks and stumps.
See beside the barren fig-tree,
See where buds shrink and abandoned,
Worthless fields turn fallow with us;
See inside our failing garden:
See the branch of Jesse growing,
Slowly, slowly, growing with us;
See the promise bursting forth from
Fields we would have left to die.
The Consolations of Writing 