Return

It is time I came back to my real life
After this voyage to an island with no name,
Where I lay down at sunrise drunk with light.

Here are books, paper, and my little knife,
The walls of solitude from which I came,
Here is the sobering, meditative night,

The quiet room where it is dark and cool,
After the intense green and the flame,
The flat white walls, the table are each good.

Long hours of work and the imposed rule :
That was the time of the tremendous rain,
The place of lightning, of the great flood.

This is the time when voyagers return
With a mad longing for known customs and things,
Where joy in an old pencil is not absurd.

What was fire is music. Then the heart was torn.
But tears are indulgence. Memory sings.
I speak of an island. Passion is the word.

May Sarton.