My loves lie round me in the dark.
Through the woods on the hilltop
I see one distant light, a star
that seems to sway and flicker
as the trees move. I see the flight
of men crossing and crossing
the blank curve of heaven. I hear
the branches clashing in the wind.
I have come to the end
of what I have supposed,
following my thread of song.
Who knows where it is going?
I am well acquainted now
among the dead. Only the past
knows me. In solitude
who will teach me?
The world’s one song is passing
in and out of deaths, as thrush notes
move in the shadows, nearer and nearer,
and then away, intent, in the hollows
of the woods. It does not attend
the dead, or what will die. It is light
though it goes in the dark. It goes
ahead, summoning. What hears follows.
Sitting among the bluebells
in my sorrow, for lost time
I saw a hummingbird stand
in air to drink from flowers.
It was a kiss he took and gave.
At his lightness and the ardor
of his throat, the song I live by
stirred my mind. I said:
“By sweetness alone it survives.”