after Philippe Jaccottet

 

In the high air the swifts are circling.

Higher still the invisible stars

are circling too. Let day withdraw

to the earth's limits, those fires

will reappear above a stretch

of dark sand.

                     And so we inhabit  

a world of distances, of movement,

where the heart is drawn

from the tree to the bird, from birds

to distant stars, and from the stars

returns to its own affections.

Thus love, in a shuttered house

increases, a servant to the careworn,

holding a lamp in its hand

 

 

 

First published in Stand 2010