One white tern sails calling
across the evening sky
under the few high clouds touched
with the first flush of sunset
while the tide keeps going out
going out to the south
all day it has been six months
that you have been gone
and then the tern is gone
and only the clouds are there
and the sounds of the late tide
–W. S. Merwin, from his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Shadow of Sirius
Trish Saunders says
from first opening to last, a stunning poem.