“Completion” by W.S. Merwin

Seen from afterward the time appears to have been
     all of a piece which of course it was but how seldom
it seemed that way when it was still happening and was
     the air through which I saw it as I went on thinking
of somewhere else in some other time whether gone
     or never to arrive and so it was divided
however long I was living it and I was where
     it kept coming together and where it kept moving apart
while home was a knowledge that did not suit every occasion
     but remained familiar and foreign as the untitled days
and what I knew better than to expect followed me
     into the garden and I would stand with friends among
the summer oaks and be a city in a different
     age and the dread news arrived on the morning when the plum trees
opened into silent flower and I could not let go
     of what I longed to be gone from and it would be that way
without end I thought unfinished and divided
     by nature and then a voice would call from the field
in the evening or the fox would bark in the cold night
     and that instant with each of its stars just where it was
in its unreturning course would appear even then
     entire and itself the way it all looks from afterward