A particular light in February,
singular in the sheen of ice upon the hill,
the ground cover grain or rayless yellow,
was sent to me in a photograph by someone thinking of me then,
a man walking in hills, I occurred to him, I
occurred. To make something of me, a photograph,
a stopping by me, a sending, it was an I
who filled another’s mind. Our eyes let what is good
pass in and what is unnecessary sieve through—
that’s what we want, what we practice and fail—
the world passes through and one of us occurs
to another and is, and stays.
If this happened only once
we would presume it a miracle,
but it happens,
and it happens,
yet didn’t he say,
I should send this light,
I want her to see it perpetually,
though I saw her just once at the shore.
I had just finished a terrifying, a lonesome, a passage of a month,
and she was saying (what?) to me from the stones,
a denizen of seals behind her
and I couldn’t read her lips,
do you need me?
that’s what I knew she was saying, there is no knowledge,
she knew this—
who are you? there’s ocean—
can’t hear you through the seals—
—that what I know
is made of salt and air,
so I sent her (what?) this, to an address written in air—
