The touch that for one moment seemed
Her touch recovered in his dream
Is as he wakes only the wind
Moving over his bare skin
And through the single towering tree
That seems to rouse, seems a body
Responding and subsiding now
As if the years had taught it how
To be both taken and to stay
By giving inward and away
Whenever stirred by a real wind.
Even the strongest of them end.
—Christian Wiman
Christian Wimans most recent book is Every Riven Thing (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
more from this author
This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 20 June 2002, on page 49
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