The Visit

Sometimes my mind is like a house where no one lives.
When I close my eyes, I can picture the house.
Whoever lived there is gone now, I can picture that.
Sometimes I sit for hours with my eyes closed
Looking in through a window, waiting to see
What will happen, waiting to see.
Nothing happens. I can't help it if
Some things are hard to imagine, much less see, if
In order to picture a window the eyes must look
Like windows, if in dreaming a door the mind
Becomes doorlike. The dead pose
An obvious problem. I can't help it that

It's such a lovely and specific morning on the day
I visit the house. That weathervane, the roofline,
Those dark shutters reproduce
With painstaking clarity the picture that I have.
Ah! the sea and the cornfield are perfect and so
Nearly where they belong. Above the fields, clouds
Assume their positions. Look at that fence! So often
I picture myself standing just where I'm standing, out
In the world, beside the house, in a field of oh

Uncanny signals: the flag on the mailbox, the numeral.
Everything that is is about to happen, I can picture that;
The world is clairvoyant, its large eyes are closed.
As clouds move, shadows pass
Over the cornfields. The sun comes out with all
That represents. Oh and
The empty house in a field of sunlight, I carry
That image with me always, it's so
Untenable, but such a quiet place to rest.