When I was beginning to read I imagined <br />that bridges had something to do with birds <br />and with what seemed to be cages but I knew <br />that they were not cages it must have been autumn <br />with the dusty light flashing from the streetcar wires <br />and those orange places on fire in the pictures <br />and now indeed it is autumn the clear <br />days not far from the sea with a small wind nosing <br />over dry grass that yesterday was green <br />the empty corn standing trembling and a down <br />of ghost flowers veiling the ignored fields <br />and everywhere the colors I cannot take <br />my eyes from all of them red even the wide streams <br />red it is the season of migrants <br />flying at night feeling the turning earth <br />beneath them and I woke in the city hearing <br />the call notes of the plover then again and <br />again before I slept and here far downriver <br />flocking together echoing close to the shore <br />the longest bridges have opened their slender wings<br /><br />William Stanley Merwin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/echoing-light/
