To see in the day or in the year a symbol

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
for god or faith, to see in the hours a name
for the unnamed nothing, the pronouns without
their antecedents; to see in the night

or in the month a sign for rolling thunder
or a pouring rain, to see the books unfold
their pages as if they were the falling leaves
of a tree in a violent storm. O the time

is brief, the sleep is short, the days end
as they begin! To believe in the moment
of a word pronounced in love near the window

of an unknown hotel; to see in the day
the beloved clearly without the strictures
of language, and to celebrate her rightly.