“After so many years of pursuing the ideal

I came home. But I had caught sight of it.

You see it sometimes in the blue-silver wake

Of island schooners, bound for Anegada, say.

And it takes other forms. I saw it flickering once

In torches by the railroad tracks in Medellín.

When I was very young I thought that love would come

And seize and take me south and I would see the rose;

And that all ambiguities we knew would merge

Like orchids on a word. Say this:

I sought the immortal word.”

So saying he went on

To join those who preceded him;

and there were those that followed.