“White on White” by W.S. Merwin

Above the terraces almost at the top
of the Tower of Babel my eyes are
travelling among the sailing clouds
once more they find themselves at home among
migrating flocks of birds both those that still
return to earth and those that have left it
lying in its losses they fly knowing
their unknowable way and my ears follow them
as they always did toward sounds from before
there was hearing and they ride echoes
into a music more familiar than
I could ever have believed possible
its passions swelling as deep as ever
ringing upward from the bells of the streams
every moment that I loved and had lost
rising toward me to be recognized
the sound of it in the rush of the night rain
I am awake and have been at home the whole time