I am always trying to make my way
to that clearing where the gods
hewn from wood sit patiently
watching over their stores of grain—
They fix me with a look I can feel
no matter how far I still am
from that goal: by the shiver
that runs down my spine I know the light
cupped by each tree late in the day
is beaten almost to its thinnest;
a sheet that ripples, numen in each
dent and vein. And I am draped
in the cloth of everything woven before
my time: syllables issue from my lips
in sleep, whose meanings I ache for
all the hours I’m awake. Take me
in your arms, I beg of the unseen.
They only stroke my cheek the same
way I was nudged as a child, made
to keep up on a path whose end
kept vanishing in the just up ahead.