And when I become a silver shining fish of thousands

in the sea, you must dive under the waters to the limits

of your breath and find me in some unremarkable school,

know me just as that first time you understood I was yours

And when you fly off like an eagle whose terrible sight sweeps

some wrecked landscape, I must become the tallest tree

in the primeval forest standing proud and slender and allow 

no wind in those welcoming branches as you land in me

When I am a pine in that wild and remote forest land,

you must be the building wind of kindness that rolls along

canyon walls and whispers close to my ear to overwhelm

me with a promise you'll bend me softer every year

And when you are that round ball of wind,

I must be the leaf on the mountain lake, willing,

lifted, whirled along—

And as you will be leaf or driftwood tossed by storms

and swells, I must walk the shore as wide-eyed witness

and trust the brutality of years will weather you 

honestly in delicate and subtle form

And when I become the sea itself, hiding all affection 

under opaque waves, my restless edge pushing pushing 

as if to escape all this blasted gravity, you must become 

the high quarried cliff and long easement of sand 

to hold me unbroken and also give me breadth

And when you settle to basalt or granite bedrock underneath

my life, I must become soil and lay myself down thick and deep

I will do so and have done do—lie under the rain and the sun—

as it seems the way things should be. 

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