from THE DAYLIGHT SECTIONS (21)

I walk all afternoon it is without you that I listen but all afternoon I think of you. I think of you all afteroon I'm walking and I'm listening. I think of you not incidentally but constantly I walk I listen and at the center of my life is you. The sunlight lifts from smithereens my broken self, for when I walk the walking is for you. The listening is you. The after care I offer to myself is just a substitute for you. I wish that I were real when I am listening. I wish that I were right with you. You do not walk you listen. And I walk as if the incense that would bring us close were there with or without you. I walk along the dark canal and sometimes others run or walk there, too. I walk with you in mind. I walk until I feel at home, then I go home to you. I listen to the light. I watch my shoes be scuffed by sand. I walk beside the water and I see the flicker of another person going by. I tell myself there's only you. I walk. I listen. I put miles on my dark shoes. I lift from earth to make the earth contain you with its atmosphere. I live for you. I hear no heart although I know that it is there in me. I walk for you.