Hurry toward Beginning

Is it because the hour is late

the dove sounds new,

no longer asking

a path to its father’s house,

no longer begging shoes of its mother?

Or is it because I can’t tell departure

from arrival, the host from the guest,

the one who waits expectant at the window

from the one who, even now, tramples the dew?

I can’t tell what my father said about the sea

we crossed together

from the sea itself,

or the rose’s noon from my mother

crying on the stairs, lost

between a country and a country.

Everywhere is home to the rain.

The hours themselves, where do they hide?

The fruit of listening, what’s that?

Are days the offspring of distracted hands?

Does waiting that grows out of waiting

grow lighter? What does my death weigh?

What’s earlier, thirst or shade?

Is all light late, the echo to some prior bell?

Is it because I’m tired that I don’t know?

Or is it because I’m dying?

When will I be born? Am I the flower,

wide awake inside the falling fruit?

Or a man waiting for a woman

asleep behind a door?

What if a word unlocks

room after room the days

wait inside? Still,

night amasses a foreground

current to my window.

Listen. Whose footsteps are those

hurrying toward beginning?