The Loon's Cry Across the Water

For sometimes, when our world is not our home
Nor we any home elsewhere, but all
Things look to leave us naked, hungry, cold
We suddenly may seem in paradise
Again, in ignorance and emptiness
Blessed beyond what we thought to know:
Then on sweet waters echoes the loon's cry.

Howare Nemerov, "The Loon's Cry"

Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1981).