Room with a Smile

Absences

Rain patters on a sea that tilts and sighs.
Fast-running floors, collapsing into hollows,
Tower suddenly, spray-haired. Contrariwise,
A wave drops like a wall: another follows,
Wilting and scrambling, tirelessly at play
Where there are no ships and no shallows.

Above the sea, the yet more shoreless day,
Riddled by wind, trails lit-up galleries:
They shift to giant ribbing, sift away.

Such attics cleared of me! Such absences!

Why Did I Dream Of You Last Night? 

Why did I dream of you last night?
    Now morning is pushing back hair with grey light
  Memories strike home, like slaps in the face;
Raised on elbow, I stare at the pale fog
          beyond the window.

    So many things I had thought forgotten
  Return to my mind with stranger pain:
- Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.

-Philip Larkin