All morning, skipping stones on the creamy lake,

I thought I heard a lute being played, high up,

in the birch trees, or a faun speaking French

with a Brooklyn accent. A snowy owl watched me

with half-closed eyes. “What have you done for me

philately,” I wanted to ask it, licking the air.

There was a village at the bottom of the lake,

and I could just make out the old postoffice,

and, occasionally, when the light struck it just right,

I glimpsed several mailmen swimming in or out of it,

letters and packages escaping randomly, 1938, 1937,

it didn’t matter to them any longer.  Void.

No such address.  Soft blazes squirmed across the surface

and I could see their church, now home to druid squatters, 

rock in the intoxicating current, as if to an ancient hymn.

And a thousand elbowing reeds conducted the drowsy band pavilion:

awake, awake, you germs of habit! Alas, I fling

my final stone, my callingcard, my gift of porphyry

to the citizens of the deep, and disappear into a copse,

raving like a butterfly to a rosebud: I love you.