She remembers the bells of cities befriended and then abandoned Chiming through streets and squares none of them knew Changing pattern on cobbles and flagstones Far away steeples and chimneys viewed from all views Rooms with paper-thin walls, private rights performed Behind unlocked doors and the damp linen sheets The taste of his skin and his shoulders shaking as they looked after Waking up with the weight of his head on her breast And outside the window the shrill, happy voices of children The threads they weave through the wilderness, roads and rivers and rivers They travel and cross, not once looking back And slowly coming from nowhere How quietly, how single-mindedly they reach their destination How Quietly, How Single-Mindedly They Reach Their Destination The ancient walls, crumbling pillars and arches And self-absorbed statues staring blind The shadow across inscriptions on the stones in overgrown churchyards Shadow sharp as a knife on the sundial embedded in the ground At sunset her burnt bare arms against the cool white marble His white shirt and the white of their eyes Always dreaming of water in wells and rivers and lakes The ocean, the harbours and sails And dark valleys and diving wells Fonghorn sounding its warning as the clouds roll in on the tide Covering the horizon, waking up to the sound of rain Fountains on the hotel terrace in the middle of a drought Dreaming of the next shower While passing through desert land The dead bodies of stray dogs A leafless tree black with grass Children begging or throwing stones A man whipping his mule The animal kneeling Water running from its eyes On the last day she comes to a farm at the edge of town An old woman is crossing a field moving slowly towards her Alone with sunflowers and going by the house She picks up their large brown seeds Slips them into her pocket and waits And waits And waits And waits And waits And waits And waits