In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.



When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

to fill the spaces

where my body's been.



We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.









"Keeping Things Whole" from Selected Poems by Mark Strand. Copyright © 1979, 1980. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.