THE OTHER HOUSE

I come back again to the old house

that I thought I knew for most of a lifetime

the house I reclaimed from abandon and ruin

and that I called my home at times when I was here

and at times when I was somewhere far from here

this time I have not come to reclaim anything

but to move nothing and to touch nothing

as though I were a ghost or here in a dream

and I know it is a dream that has no age

in this dream the same river is still here

the house is the old house and I am here in the morning

in the sunlight and the same bird is singing