Found and lost no more (W. S. Merwin)

                      Now it is clear to me that no leaves are mine
                      no roots are mine

       that wherever I go I will be a spine of smoke in the forest

       and the forest will know it

                  

       we will both know it

       and that birds vanish because of something

       that I remember

       flying through me as though I were a great wind

       as the stones settle into the ground

       the trees into themselves

       staring as though I were a great wind

       which is what I pray for

           

       it is clear to me that I cannot return

       but that some of us will meet once more

       even here

       like our own statues

           

       and some of us still later without names

       and some of us will burn with the speed

       of endless departures

       and be found and lost no more

--W. S. Merwin, Now It is Clear

(published in The New Yorker, June 1970)

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