DREAM OF KOA RETURNING
Sitting on the steps of that cabin
that I had always known
with its porch and gray-painted floorboards
I looked out to the river
flowing beyond the big trees
and all at once you
were just behind me
lying watching me
as you did years ago
and not stirring at all
when I reached back slowly
hoping to touch your long amber fur
and there we stayed without moving
listening to the river
and I wondered whether
it might be a dream
whether you might be a dream
whether we both were a dream
in which neither of us moved
— W.S. Merwin, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Shadow of Sirius (2009, Copper Canyon Press), used by permission of the publishers.
Copyright © 2017 by W. S. Merwin.
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