That summer, a week before he died
the streets filled suddenly
with clouds of small, white moths.
Flying, seemingly at random,
they would alight with the chance
of a petal falling
on a shoulder or the sweaty neck
of a horse passing
to breathe their wings a little….
They vanished as quickly as they’d come.
And no one knew where
they’d come from, or why
or took note of the direction of their flight….
For the talk that week
was full of the master’s sight,
how it had come back to him
on one of those gray dawns
when the dew on closed petals
and the air surrounding all
seemed one.
The master himself seemed pleased,
not excited as we thought he should be
at the miracle of his returning vision,
just over-brimming a little.
He said he had some things
to get in order,
and then he had in mind
a fugue.
But though we pressed him,
he’d say no more
only gazed off as though
his mind was already in the flight….
So we went back to our fields, and
when we leaned across the fence at evening time,
we talked of other things.
we did not know
that the question
which each man holds in his heart
but does not voice,
for him, would soon be answered.
