Few hours after waking, I sit With echoes of dreams, in the shade Of a sunlight tree, with a book

Of poems open in my lap, and think Back to what was showing on the subterranean Screen of sleep: a backwards shadow of the future,

Under which I found myself unfurling Explanations to the unfree, using semaphores? I am not a prophet, nor have any desire to be.

Yet what is a prophet but someone Who has seen a shining city, and thus runs Around, running at his mouth,

Waiting for mobs of believers to gather, And be led to salvation or slaughter, While the earth stays as constant

And as constantly changing as before? No. All I want to do, few hours after waking, Is to bring forth an utterance from silence, Which leads me, the listener, back to silence.