I have heard springtime: the tinkle of windbells and blossoms
I have seen summer: the swarming and shimmer of seagulls.
Now I feel autumn: the shadows of trees on my skin;
And an odor of winter sweeps down on the wind:
A smell of the trees turning brown on the wind,
And the snow.
I have seen nests left empty by swallows in summer.
I have seen seagulls cross over the water in winter.
Change is all shapeless: massed in the treetops and hills,
And a pressure of darkness moves subtle and still:
The silence of night flowing ancient and chill.
And I know
The crossing of silence with silence, and seagulls, and stars;
The lattice of midnight on mastheads and halyards and spars.
It beckons: a beacon with firefly flashes and fingers.
And night has muffled the faraway singers,
And night has broken the channel buoy’s ding.
And I go.
