Variations to the Accompaniment of a Cloud

W. S. Merwin

Because I do not hope ever again

to pass this way I sing these

notes now in silence

each in its own time

one morning near the end of spring

among the invisible unheard stars I sing

this one time with the hope that is here

in every breath

may these notes be heard another morning

in another life

in another spring together

Because I do not hope ever to pass

this way again

one morning late in spring

in the cold rain above the valley I sing

in the old house I came to in my youth

on the ridge looking over the river

a house that had been left to its own silence

for half a century

home for bats and swallows and patches

of sunlight wandering across the floors

under holes in the roof on the day

I first saw it

and recognized it without knowing it

above the same river

Because I do not hope to see again

this spring morning with its cloud of light

that wakes the blackbird in the trees downhill

from the house I came to long ago

when I was young and the silence

was a summer day

that first summer that I would see

from these windows

I came to see

the plum trees flowering on the slope below

the snow swirling outside the kitchen

I will not see this morning fill

with light again along the green field

under the walnut trees those silent ancients

I reach out to it with words

it never hears

Because I do not hope ever to find

my way again to the moments of pure

single fortune and the unrepeated mistakes

that led me here

I look back in wonder

at how I found you and we came to be here

where has it gone

never was there one step backward

Although I do not hope to know again

what I have known since the beginning

not for a moment has it left me

I keep looking for what has always been mine

searching for it even as I

think of leaving it

my love was always

woven with leaving

moment by moment leaving

the one time