A people chained to aurora

I alone disarming you

Millions of facts of distributed light

Helping myself with some big boxes

Up the steps, then turning to no neighborhood;

The child’s psalm, slightly sung

In the hall rushing into the small room.

Such fire! leading away from destruction.

Somewhere in outer ether I glimpsed you

Coming at me, the solo barrier did it this time,

Guessing us staying, true to be at the blue mark

Of threshold. Tired of planning it again and again

The cool boy distant, and the soaked-up

Afterthought, like so much rain, or roof.

The miracle took you in beside him.

Leaves rushed the window, there was clear water and the sound of a lock.

Now I never see you much any more.

The summers are much colder than they used to be

In that other time, when you and I were young.

I miss the human truth of your smile,

The half-hearted gaze of your palms,

And all things together, but there is no comic reign

Only the facts you put to me. You must not, then,

Be very surprised if I am alone: it is all for you,

The night, and the stars, and the way we used to be.

There is no longer any use in harping on

The incredible principle of daylong silence, the dark sunlight

As only the grass is beginning to know it,

The wreath of the north pole,

Festoons for the late return, the shy pensioners

Agasp on the lamplit air. What is agreeable

Is to hold your hand. The gravel

Underfoot. The time for coming near is close. Useless

Verbs shooting the other words far away.

Since I had already swallowed the poison

I could only gaze into the distance at my life

Like a saint’s, with each day distinct.

No heaviness in the upland pastures. Nothing

In the forest. Only life under the huge trees

Like a coat that has grown too big, moving far away,

Cutting swamps for men like lapdogs, holding its own,

Performing once again, for you and for me.