THE FLIGHT
for Bruce and Fox McGrew
At times in the day
I thought of a fire to watch
not that my hands were cold
but to have that doorway to see through
into the first thing
even our names are made of fire
and we feed on night
walking I thought of a fire
turning around I caught sight of it
in an opening in the wall
in another house and another
before and after
in house after house that was mine to see
the same fire the perpetual bird
— W.S. Merwin, from his book The Compass Flower (1977), and found in the collection Migration: New & Selected Poems, (2005, Copper Canyon Press), used by permission of the publishers. Copyright © 1977 by W. S. Merwin.
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Photo by Annie Roi used under Creative Commons License CC BY 2.0.
