The Sound of the Light.
I hear a sheep running on the path of broken limestone
through brown curled leaves fallen early from walnut limbs
at the end of a summer.
How light the bony flutter of their passage.
I can hear their coughing, their calling and wheezing.
Even the warm greased wool rubbing on the worn walls,
I hear them, passing in the hollow lane.
And there is still time.
The shuffling of black shoes of women climbing stone ledges
to church keeps flowing up that dazzling hill
around the grassy rustle of voices
on the far side of a slatted shutter.
And the small waves go on whispering
on the shingle in the heat of an hour without wind.
It is Sunday.
None of the sentences begins or ends.
There is time.
Again the unbroken rumble of trucks and the hiss of brakes
roll upward out of the avenue.
I forget what season they are exploding through,
what year the drill on the sidewalk is smashing.
It is the year in which you are sitting there
as you are in the morning speaking to me.
And I hear you through the burning day.
And I touch you to be sure and there is time.
There is still time.