They knew my name and saved me
a corner of a far field
where under a library of dreams
I’d built a closet, hung the ghosts
of all I’d forgotten.
The moon fell through its changes,
numbers through an almanac,
accumulating years
in a forgotten necrology
in which I was to have been listed,
was to have been made past tense.
But I’d gone forgotten between
the recipe contests, meteor showers
and eclipses, forgotten, a sweet
redundancy among anecdotes and husbandry.
And so the wonder of them
knowing my name here
where weeds grew
wan and bright as death
was truly something,
to be stood
like snow inside a crystal,
that is to say, to hear
my name just then was more
than a kindness.
Beyond, the forest was undressing
on the doorstep of winter
and the stars coming out
one after another
and while the set change continued
you arrived
and sang me a story,
helped me build the ladder
from which one day
I would see over the horizon
and wave
to those still waving back.