It can't be the passing of time that casts <br />That white shadow across the waters <br />Just offshore. <br />I shiver a little, with the evening. <br />I turn down the steep path to find <br />What's left of the river gold. <br />I whistle a dog lazily, and lazily <br />A bird whistles me. <br />Close by a big river, I am alive in my own country, <br />I am home again. <br />Yes: I lived here, and here, and my name, <br />That I carved young, with a girl's, is healed over, now, <br />And lies sleeping beneath the inward sky <br />Of a tree's skin, close to the quick. <br />It's best to keep still. <br />But: <br />There goes that bird that whistled me down here <br />To the river a moment ago. <br />Who is he? A little white barn owl from Hudson's Bay, <br />Flown out of his range here, and, if he wants to, <br />He can be the body that casts <br />That white shadow across the waters <br />Just offshore.<br /><br />James Arlington Wright<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rip/
