They Told Us Never

In that long drift beside the county highway

and that cresting wave the length of the lake

and that look you have when I don't know

where you are, but I want to be there, too,

and in those trees at the top of the dune

they told us never to climb,

I know there's something hidden and waiting,

I know there's something I can't see yet,

the arc of it curving just beyond

the reach of my fingers,

like the stars on one of those nights

when the sky comes very close.

- Ralph Murre