Otherwise by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

Jane Kenyon

Jane Kenyon (1947–1995) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and earned her BA and MA from the University of Michigan, where she met poet Donald Hall, her future husband. They later moved to Eagle Pond Farm in New Hampshire, where Kenyon spent much of her writing life.

Kenyon published four poetry collections during her lifetime: From Room to Room (1978), The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986), Let Evening Come (1990), and Constance (1993). She was also a translator of Anna Akhmatova. Her poetry is known for its quiet, precise language and close attention to nature, domestic life, relationships, grief, and the inner experience of depression.

Nature and its cycles appear throughout her work, often serving as a way to explore mortality, change, and the passage of time. Her poems are celebrated for finding profound meaning in ordinary experiences—housework, family, animals, landscapes, and daily routines.

Kenyon died of leukemia in 1995 at the age of 47, while serving as New Hampshire’s poet laureate. Her posthumous collection Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (1996) further established her reputation as a poet of ordinary wonder, emotional honesty, and quiet resilience.