The Idea

For us, too, there was a wish to possess

Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves

Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless

In which we might see ourselves; and this desire

Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold

That ice on the valley’s lakes cracked and rolled

And blowing snow covered what earth we saw

And scenes from the past, when they surfaced again

Looked not as they had, but ghostly and white

Among false curves and hidden erasures

And never once did we feel we were close

Until the night wind said, “Why do this

Especially now? Go back to the place you belong;”

And there appeared , with its windows glowing, small

In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin

And we stood before it, amazed at its being there

And would have gone forward and opened the door

And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there

But that it was ours by not being ours

And should remain empty. That was the idea