“Shaving Without a Mirror” by W.S. Merwin

As though there could be more    than one center
many skies cleared in the night    and there it is
the mountain this face of it    still brindled with cloud shadows
if I raised my hand    I could touch it like air
high shallow valleys    cradling the clear wind
all like a thing remembered    where haystacks waited for winter

but now it is so blue    would there be eyes in it
looking out from dark nerves    as the morning passes in our time
while the sound of a plane rises    behind me beyond trees
so that I breathe and reach up to the air    and feel water
it is myself    the listener to the music
to the clouds in the gray passes    and the clear leaves

where are the forest voices    now that the forests have gone
and those from above the treeline    oh where that fed on fog
of a simpler compound    that satisfied them
when did I ever knowingly    set hands on a cloud
who have walked in one often    following the rim in anger
Brother the world is blind    and surely you come from it
where children grow steadily    without knowledge of creatures

other than domesticated    through rags of woods yet emerge
as the clouds part and sweep on    passing southward in spring
fingers crossing the slopes    shadows running leaping
all night that peak watched    the beacon over the sea
and answered nothing    now it turns to the morning
an expression of knowledge    above immigrant woods

nothing is native of fire    and everything is born of it
then I wash my face    as usual
trying to remember a date    before the war
coming to a green farm at sunrise    dew smell from pastures
after that there were various    graduations
this passion for counting    has no root of its own
I stand by a line of trees    staring at a bare summit
do I think I was born here    I was never born