As those who are gone now
keep wandering through our words
sounds of paper following them
at untold distances
so I wake again in the old house
where at times I have believed
that I was waiting for myself
and many years have gone
taking with them the semblances of youth
reason after reason ranges of blue hills
who did I think was missing
those days neither here nor there
my own dog waiting
to be known
–W. S. Merwin,
from his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Shadow of Sirius