In this one place, there is wondering
as in a dream's waking, how we desire
to take shape what passes for remembrance.
To say desire and refusal in the same breath,
and do with what even the seasons ask us
to leave untouched.

Like the late afternoons I went out
and walked the flanks of the lagoon
where water could just as mean
water is created in the likeness of the onlooker.
How we would have wanted to defer the wind,
stay the water as we would a montage,

hold back the curled leaf from falling
as if the very minute it makes contact
with the surface, we would be moved
altogether, the dream acquitting us,
the water only professing tremors,
and we waking to the thrush of the natural

earth. There is in all this the wanting
to keep still, gather into a long wail of silence
whatever it is that threatens to break
into a cry, like this dead branch
upon human stepping, or far above,
perched on a tree, a bird folding itself in its wings.

Earth, I take my place among you again:
bird call, crackle of a branch, scatter of leaves.
To allow the face to touch the water
finally generously is to consider a view
of ripples and admit only its mere remembrance —
in the beginning such as this, a dream bloomed.