Substance
--W. S. Merwin

I could see that there was a kind of distance lighted
......behind the face of that time in its very days
as they appeared to me but I could not think of any
......words that spoke of it truly nor point to anything
except what was there at the moment it was beginning
......to be gone and certainly it could not have been proven
nor held however I might reach toward it touching
......the warm lichens the features of the stones the skin
of the river and I could tell then that it was
......the animals themselves that were the weight and place
of the hour as it happened and that the mass of the cow’s neck
......the flash of the swallow the trout’s flutter were
where it was coming to pass they were bearing the sense of it
......without questions through the speechless cloud of light