incidental poem: a shabby work in progress 2005-2009

Those were days of early rain, late light,

Clouds neither shrinking nor growing,

Purging all their drops on woodlands glowing.

 

Wild and deep and filled with shade,

wind-worn and unmade.

    Inside;

Quiet moss of dripping-rooms

Where crownless branches brood.

 

And now, leafing through your papers,

Thoughts and self-reproaches;

Playing coy looks with clasping arms,

Fixing fast your smile, that smile that they adore;

That cheer that fails upon the finish line,

Upon the shutting of a door.

And when your back is turning

(As it has so many times before)

You quell the height and breadth and depth of things,

Yes, all these things and more.

 

Momentary joys subside,

Sprout in passing darkness; pass and glide.

No fleeting exaltations.

No ruptured spread of doubt.

Forget the hillsides after rain,

The starling-littered skies;

The breathless backward glances gleaned

Against the Other’s eyes.

 

The day has come and it

Slides upon the scene unspectacularly.

Veiling stars, the flight of the moon,

Gathering the distance to the eye.

 

We are far from home, you and I,

And far from those who form and

Feed upon our loves.

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