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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.
James Wright
Read poems
about / on: river,
dog,
girl,
tree,
home,
sky,
time,
water,
sleep
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James Wright 
Free Poetry E-Book: 31 poems of
James Wright
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