Classic Poem

Arriving home tired I am beset by the voices asking
From me and by the family saying he is tired and it was
No wonder for today has been a hard day. Sleep puts everything
Right. O the tale moves along in this way in and out like
A car on rubber tires until it bounces over a curve that
Was not expected. To get it clearer and clearer I would
Promise anything out of myself but I am as near to myself as
You are near the sea on which I am looking because I see how
It does not move not a change of color less change than
Death when death is neither old or young but serious and calm
The hills are nearer to me than to themselves and nearer than
The trees under my window that shake and refuse to be photographed
It is not cinema though my room is darkened and the house is
Moving like a stout lady when there are stairs to be
Climbed. At this time the valley is not a patchwork quilt
Stitched with yellow threads up and down and sometimes crabfooted
Taking a new course. It moves in slowly with the sea and gets
As far as the sea from its own voice. I am as far from
Myself then as the trees under my window are from the wind
When it has passed and the trees are quiet again.

But I am sure of the red roofs and the lights coming on
And sure that this cool quiet has no meaning other than the
Making fast of the sea and the valley.
The night is a woman who thinks of me in another city
The night is a woman I believe in and the night trusts me.
Her breath is sweet and lights sparkle down at the shore like
Her kisses long after the roofs but not too long.