RETURNING

I was walking in a dark valley

and above me the tops of the hills

had caught the morning light.

I heard the light singing as it went

among the grassblades and the leaves.

I waded upward through the shadow

until my head emerged,

my shoulders were mantled with the light,

and my whole body came up

out of the darkness, and stood

on the new shore of the day.

Where I had come was home,

for my own house stood white

where the dark river wore the earth.

The sheen of bounty was on the grass,

and the spring of the year had come.