When You Go Away

When You Go Away

When you go away the wind clicks around to the north 
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls 
Showing the black walls 
The clock goes back to striking the same hour 
That has no place in the years

And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes 
In one breath I wake 
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth 
I remember that I am falling 
That I am the reason 
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be 
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy

-- W.S. Merwin