The Spray

A drifting leaf, a dance on the stream, Swirls endlessly in the great fair dream, A lingering note in the night’s soft air, Will it find the past, or life’s bright glare?

The spray of the waters tear the silence thin, While a distant echo whispers from within, Do the stars still know that their light will bend, As the rivers flow, life’s pathways to tend?

And in the shimmer of twilight’s embrace, Once more, beneath the soft twilight lace, The spray, it carries whispers of the sea, In dreams where the earth and the spirit roam free.

• Robert Penn Warren