And these places that I know you
are not you
and these circumstances (which are our only dances,
we who are poor)
            that tend around you
do not bind you
            nor are they the circle
of which you seem to be the hub
                and at evening on
this first spring day
shattering sunlight crosses bedded shale
minding serpents out of rock cleft
winding a scallop of pure green, young celandine,
under rock shelf
            and the stream is loud
beneath me
          cataracts we are

are not you, none of this is you.

--Robert Kelly