From this dock by a lake
where I walked down after a late dinner—

some clouds blown like gauze across the stars,
and every so often an airplane
crossing the view from left to right,
its green starboard wing light
descending against this soft wind into the city airport.

The permanent stars,
I think on the walk back to the house,
and the momentary clouds in their vaporous shapes,
I go on, my hands clasped behind my back
like a professor of nothing in particular.

Then I am near enough to the house—
warm, amber windows,
cold dots of lights from the Christmas tree,

glad to have seen those clouds, now blown away,
happy to be under the stars,
constant and swirling in the firmament,
and here on the threshold of this house
with all its work and hope,
and steady enough under a fixed and shifting sky.