Apology

I would not write a book,

But I have a friend over the sea

Whom I have never seen,

And who does not know that he is my friend.

He lives in a house of baked yellow clay,

So old now that it is brown as the leaves

The wind drops upon it.

When he climbs the hill behind his cottage,

And sits with his back to a bare oak

With twisted, futile branches,

And looks out on the ocean

That makes far, drowned birds of his dreams,

I want him to hold my book, and with returning eyes

Confess to the speedwell and robins

That they have a new comrade.

Olive Tilford Dargan