Let me tell you of the cock that crows in darkness and of the dew that forms. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, and you don’t want to get the wrong idea. I don’t mean to be obtrusive. Let me stand dizzily at your door. I don’t want to be mean. I want the darkness and the cold to answer for my indecision. You don’t mean to refuse me. You seek the comfort of a natural discrimination and a mutual advantage. But if you do, you don’t mean to offend me, and I don’t mean to tell you I am hurt. I don’t mean to call your name if I’m alone and the wind sighs in chorus through the trees, but I wouldn’t regret it. I don’t mean to argue if you are absent with a thought of careless flight, of ambiguous direction. I don’t mean to say I love you. I don’t mean to describe my silences if you don’t want to hear. Birds may huddle here in the grasses, but I wouldn’t shatter them into the unfettered air.
26 November 1973