“Trail Marker” by W.S. Merwin

Published in: 

The Shadow of Sirius, 2008

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

The Merwin Conservancy's logo; image displays a palm frond oriented vertically