lost and found

A light wind went beyond my window,
and the trees swimming

in the golden morning air.

Last night for hours I thought

of a boy lost in a huge city,

a boy in search of someone

lost and not returning. I thought

how long it takes to believe

the simplest facts of our lives --

that certain losses are final,

death is one, childhood another:

It was dark and the house creaked

as though we set sail for

a port beyond darkness.

I must have dozed in my chair

and wakened to see the dims shapes

of orange tree and fig against

the sky turned grey, and a few

doves were moaning from the garden.

The night that seemed so final

had ended, and this dawn becoming

day was changing moment

by moment-- for now there

was blue above, and the tall grass

was streaked and blowing, the quail

barked from their hidden nests.

Why give up anything? Someone

is always coming home, turning

a final corner to behold the house

that had grown huge in absence

now dull and shrunken, but the place

where he had come of age, still

dear and like no other. I have

come home from being lost,

home to a name I could accept,

a face that saw all I saw

and broke in a dark room against

a wall that heard all my secrets

and gave nothing back. Now he

is home, the one I searched for.

He is beside me as he always

was, a light spirit that brings

me luck and listens when I speak.

The day is here, and it will last

forever or until the sun fails

and the birds are once again

hidden and moaning, but for now

the lost are found. The sun

has cleared the trees, the wind

risen, and we, father and child

hand in hand, the living and

the dead, are entering the world

philip levine