What I thought I had left I kept finding again
but when I went looking for what I thought I remembered
as anyone could have foretold it was not there
when I went away looking for what I had to do
I found that I was living where I was a stranger
but when I retraced my steps the familiar vision
turned opaque and all surface and in the wrong places
and the places where I had been a stranger appeared to me
to be where I had been at home called by name and answering
getting ready to go away and going away
...
There are the yellow beads of the stonecrops and the twisted flags
of dried irises knuckled into the hollows
of moss and rubbly limestone on the waves of the low wall
the ivy has climbed along them where the weasel ran
the light has kindled to gold the late leaves of the cherry tree
over the lane by the house chimney there is the roof
and the window looking out over the garden
summer and winter there is the field below the house
there is the broad valley far below them all with the curves
of the river a strand of sky threaded through it
and the notes of bells rising out of it faint as smoke
and there beyond the valley above the rim of the wall
the line of mountains I recognize like a line of writing
that has come back when I had thought it was forgotten
-- W.S. Merwin, lines from 'Fox Sleep'
