Coming home

When we're driving, in the dark,

on the long road

to Provincetown, which lies empty

for miles, when we're weary,

when the buildings

and the scrub pines lose

their familiar look,

I imagine us rising

from the speeding car,

I imagine us seeing

everything from another place -- the top

of one of the pale dunes

or the deep and nameless fields of the sea --

and what we see is the world

that cannot cherish us

but which we cherish,

and what we see is our life

moving like that,

along the dark edges

of everything -- the headlights

like lanterns

sweeping the blackness --

believing in a thousand

fragile and unprovable things,

looking out for sorrow,

slowing down for happiness,

making all the right turns

right down to the thumping

barriers to the sea,

the swirling waves,

the narrow streets, the houses,

the past, the future,

the doorway that belongs

to you and me.

                                               -mary oliver