Beyond the confines of loss In the absence of light In the presence of absence In the absence of present In despair of the past to be lived again And lost again........ Still I see you hovering as if through mist Dripping tears over the contradictions Of unused time Over the absurdities of re-fused love. Yet I offered you little enough with boasted thoughts Speculating in comfort On the ineffable, As if I had thrown my mind to the dust And the distance of disbelief in fixed eyes Had swallowed like a city street The sounds of grief in muffled Crying 'So much pain out of the pores of gentleness' And lying in the long grass As we dreamed that we would do Lazily swatting at the old words Flies of a summer's day, I wonder about the place of we And why the earth feels hard And if we loved at all And when And how And why. London 1968 |