This poem is from Jane Hirshfield's book After (Harper Perennial, 2006).
Late Self-Portrait by Rembrandt
The dog, dead for years, keeps coming back in the dream.
We look at each other there with the old joy.
It was always her gift to bring me into the present—
Which sleeps, changes, awakens, dresses, leaves.
Happiness and unhappiness
differ as a bucket hammered from gold differs from one of pressed tin,
this painting proposes.
Each carries the same water, it says.
Listen to the poet read it herself here at Slate.
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