Late Summer Leaving

          I woke up and turned on the light.

          You were dreaming

                                          of white birds.

                                                                 Hibernating.

                 Your face tilted a soft angle

                                                  to the light.

                                                                    Even in

          your sleep you sense direction.

                    Your eyes are closed to the brightness

                                  but you breathe in sun

                      like sunflowers do.

          (The sense of light is like another

              kind of touch,

                            like air and water to the skin.)

          I am dressed now and see myself walk

                  away from you

                                          in an arc.

                                                         I see a war shield on the wall

                  round and feathers leaning out.

          There are geese in the north

                                                    cleaning their wings

                           in preparation for flight south,

                                                                   and I can hear you

          another voice in your dreaming

                                                       like birds

          talking about some return home.

          You turn your head

                                              one more time before I go.

                   Your body shifts itself like a boat

                                               on a strange tropical sea.

          You face east.

                                             The sun

                           comes up over the Sandias on star time.

          It is another year,

                              another morning.

          I watch it return in you

                                and say one last song to return home on.