Envoi - New England Review

Photo by Sammi Bushman

Envoi

In a quiet moment, collect your things.

Not the objects that refuse to leave you

—lamp, books, little shells

that follow you year by year.

Do not bring the streets that call,

the green bridge over the channel,

or buildings at sunset in whose warm

doorways you want to linger.

You are afraid of forgetting, but you know

these streets already, they withhold

no secrets, neither does the harbor,

although it’s dark under the piers.

Instead, gather up rain pelting the Sound,

find a way to carry the mist,

and with great care fold together

fog drifting over black hemlocks.

Let it catch in the branches of your mind,

so that maybe, at your destination, it will rise,

travel awhile beside you,

before dissolving into another form.

- Published with a slightly different form in New England Review Volume 19, Number 2, Spring 1998