In “Address,” the speaker watches the evening sky and sees birds returning home—trees seem to inhale them as they settle, like a warm shawl being drawn close. That image of easy, natural belonging sharpens the speaker’s own sense of waiting: there is still no resting place, no “perch,” in the arms of the person addressed. The poem then shifts into a dreamlike hope. If they were together, the speaker would tend the small rituals of the other’s nights, even pegging out the sheets of those “night flights.” Their separate worlds—old lands and new skies—would move as one mind, and each morning the beloved’s breath would send the speaker flying. The speaker is not yet in that place; the poem lives in the gap between waiting and imagined union, and that tension gives it its tender ache. The mood is intimate, wistful, and airy: love imagined as both shelter and release.
Address — Summary
Every evening the trees inhale birds Swirling back home a warm shawl But I still wait for my perch in your arms
I would peg so lightly the sheets of your night flights We would travel in one mind your old lands my new skies And every morning you would breathe me fly