O Mensageiro

Is this man turning angel as he stares
At one red flower whose name he does not know,
The velvet face, the black-tipped hairs?

His eyes dilated like a cat's at night,
His lips move somewhat but he does not speak
Of what completes him through his sight.

His body makes to imitate the flower,
Kneeling, with splayed toes pushing at the soil,
The source, crude, granular, and sour.

His stillness answers like a looking glass
The flower's, it is repose of unblown flame
That nests within the glow of grass.

Later the news, to branch from sense and sense,
Bringing their versions of the flower in small
Outward into intelligence.

But meanwhile, quiet and reaching as a flame,
He bends, gazing not at but into it.
Tough stalk, and face without a name.

Thom Gunn, A Destruição do Nada e outros poemas, Relógio D'Água, 1993.