With no companion to my mood,
Against the wind as it should be
...
My need has frayed with time; you said it would.
It has; I can walk again across the flood
Of gold sil popples on the straw-gold hills
Under a deep Californian sky that expels
...
Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the desert moves thew breeze,
As to a sick man, without cause, comes peace
...
Awake for hours and staring at the ceiling
Through the unsettled stillness of the night
He grows possessed of the obsessive feeling
That dawn has come and gone and brought no light.
...
I smiled at you because I thought that you
Were someone else; you smiled back;
...
Light now restricts itself
To the top half of trees;
The angled sun
Slants honey-coloured rays
...
Across these miles I wish you well.
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep.
May you not sense what I don't tell.
May you not dream, or doubt, or weep.
...
How rarely all these few years, as work keeps us aloof,
Or fares, or one thing or another,
...