On Not Finding You at Home Usually you appear at the front door when you hear my steps on the gravel, but today the door was closed, not a wisp of pale smoke from the chimney. I peered into a window but there was nothing but a table with a comb, some yellow flowers in a glass of water and dark shadows in the corners of the room. I stood for a while under the big tree and listened to the wind and the birds, your wind and your birds, your dark green woods beyong the clearing. This is not what it is like to be you, I realized after a few of your magnificent clouds flew over the rooftop. It is just me thinking about being you. And before I headed back down the hill, I walked in a circle around your house, making an invisible line which you would have to cross before dark.