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70
Night Piece
Last night I lay awake
beside my sleeping wife
at four a.m., and listened:
wind sifted through the pine tree
and made a branch tip fi nger
the roof above our bed
as if refl ectively.
Then I went in my mind
the way the wind was taking --
down through the winding canyon,
shouldering past the trees,
and onto Hendry's beach,
across the channel waters,
gaining the channel islands,
and then the open sea
and moving by itself
over the dark swells
and nothing more to seek.
My dear slept on beside me
I knew; I had for proof
her light breath on my cheek.
The branch kept fi ngering
the same place on the roof.