Window

 

 for how many years have you gone through the house shutting the windows,

while the rain was still five miles away and veering,

o plum-colored clouds,

to the north away from you

and you did not even know enough to be sorry,

you were glad those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple, were sweeping on, elsewhere, violent and electric and uncontrollable

and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget all enclosures,

including the enclosure of yourself,

o lonely leaf,

and will you dash finally, frantically, to the windows and haul them open

and lean out to the dark, silvered sky,

to everything that is beyond capture, shouting im here, im here!

now, now, now, now, now.

Mary Oliver