Because this is the passing
and not the dream, I slough off
this ribbon and cross the cherry orchard
in a single breaststroke,
moonstroke.
You made the ribbon a river.
You dipped my night in Egyptian blue.
What is the cat, the bowl, the lamp
to you?
Everything is familiar.
You move through the world
with the exultation
of a pharaoh in his tomb.
But I leave house and country.
I greet the hedgewitch rubbing in the hazel.
I league with the beeches.
My knees,
which once reasoned
with your most unreasonable requests,
are mud-loved.
I look upon the sea
because familiarity and truth
are two women gazing in two wells.
I wear my best dress.