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