Then.

Appian, A Pond, 1910

Far Country

At times now from some margin of the day

I can hear birds of another country

not the whole song but a brief phrase of it

out of a music that I may have heard

once in a moment I appear to have

forgotten for the most part that full day

no sight of which I can remember now

though it must have been where my eyes were then

that knew it as the present while I thought

of somewhere else without noticing that

singing when it was there and still went on

whether or not I noticed now it falls

silent when I listen and leaves the day

and flies before it to be heard again

somewhere ahead when I have forgotten

W.S. Merwin