Variations to the Accompaniment of a Cloud

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