Returning (1975/1998)
from his Collected Poems (2009)
It isn't far. Come with me. There's a path
We used to take. There is a stream,
A thin ripple, really, of white stones
Dislodged from a dilapidated boundary
Between two now-forgotten fields;
There is a tree, a muddily abandoned sprawl
Off-balance—the one tall thing
You could see from where I walked with her.
What it all looks like now I wouldn't know,
But come with me. It was an early dusk
On that day too, and just as sickeningly cold,
And when I called to her: 'It isn't far',
She said: 'You go.'
Somewhere ahead of us
I thought I could foresee
A silence, a new path,
A clean sweep of solitude, downhill.
Dear friend, I wish you could have seen
This place when it was at its best,
When I was,
But it isn't far. It isn't far. Come with me.