Another August by James Merrill

Another August

Pines. The white, ochre-pocked houses. Sky unflawed. Upon so much former strangeness a calm settles, glaze of custom to be neither shattered nor shattered by. Home. Home at last.

Years past—blind, tattering

wind, hail, tears—my head was in those clouds

that now are dark pearl in my head.

Open the shutters. Let variation

abandon the swallows one by one.

How many summer dusks were needed

to make that single skimming form!

The briefest firefly kindles to its type.

Here is each evening’s lesson. First

the hour, the setting. Only then

the human being, his clean shirtsleeve, anyone’s

chalked among treetrunks, round a waist,

or lifted in an entrance. Watch for him.

Be him.

Envoi for S.

Whom you saw mannerless and dull of heart,

Easy to fool, impossible to hurt,

I wore that fiction like a fine white shirt

And asked no favor but to act the part.