A Cage To Hold My Dreams
Birthday Thoughts For An Absent Lady
Bring on the cake of fifty-two bright candles,
one for every year of vibrant life. Pour the champagne,
lets raise our glasses, this time we'll do it in style.
She would be sixty today, but desirous of her company, too,
God cut short her stay, and uncomplainingly she went,
sad to leave but knowing it was futile to argue.
Love ran at us like a steam train, in the days when
steam trains ran, but with the blind arrogance of
youth we thought we could control it--an idea so farcical
that the trees laughed and the shops closed early.
Placing her future in my hands was an act of faith
stronger than an ancient martyr's, but from that day to
this, no sensation was sweet enough, no enterprise had
the power to take me from her.
She did not love me at first. She thought that all
poets were vain, uncouth creatures with mad eyes and
crooked teeth, but when my words touched her inner
soul, she would forgive me anything. Things I failed to
tell her before we ran out of time, she shall hear soon
in some quiet corner of the universe where love is
evergreen, where my faith tells me she is waiting.
As the twig on which a lone bird rests trembles when
it flies, I, too, trembled when God sent down his
adjutant. Not for her the hardening of arteries, the
parchment look or smell of age, a slow closing down of
the will, or a heart putting sleep before duty. She went
with undimmed eyes, skin as smooth as glass, a young
bride in all but the potholed landscape of her body.
Just as no rainbow's end hides gold, no stepping stones
on earth will lead me to her. Loss has made me a child
again, clinging onto battered old toys, suspicious of new
delights, envious of others' happiness, hiding my wants
and needs behind a swagger, trying to lose this awful pain
in ways which only make it worse.
We have not seen her gentle eyes for many a year,
eyes which I opened to love, and just as tenderly closed
while mine ran wet with helpless tears. She was the
lock which God made to fit my key, and since that door
closed, finally, none other have I sought to open.
Once rarely heard, the sounds of lonlinesshave become
old friends--the rattle of the letterbox, the cistern
refilling, crackling woodfire, rain against the window.
If she had been given more years than grassblades on
the lawn, I would still want more. I knew as that last
day wore on, that very soon warm winds would soften
the land, frozen rivers would start to move again,
the bare branches outside our window would get their Spring,
but by nightfall she would be gone. And I prayed to be
taken with her, to be one dust with hers, to ride
the same breezes, to settle on the same grassy mounds.
The sea at Southwold glides in and out of the darkness.
Beyond it, oil-rig lights skate on the flat sea.
The night is comforting and generous with its sandwiches
and wine. As the years roll by, solemnly in line like
circus elephants, I shall be here, sometimes alone,
other times not, to feel these soft sands beneath my heels,
....and to remember.
Southwold, Suffolk 251003
one for every year of vibrant life. Pour the champagne,
lets raise our glasses, this time we'll do it in style.
She would be sixty today, but desirous of her company, too,
God cut short her stay, and uncomplainingly she went,
sad to leave but knowing it was futile to argue.
Love ran at us like a steam train, in the days when
steam trains ran, but with the blind arrogance of
youth we thought we could control it--an idea so farcical
that the trees laughed and the shops closed early.
Placing her future in my hands was an act of faith
stronger than an ancient martyr's, but from that day to
this, no sensation was sweet enough, no enterprise had
the power to take me from her.
She did not love me at first. She thought that all
poets were vain, uncouth creatures with mad eyes and
crooked teeth, but when my words touched her inner
soul, she would forgive me anything. Things I failed to
tell her before we ran out of time, she shall hear soon
in some quiet corner of the universe where love is
evergreen, where my faith tells me she is waiting.
As the twig on which a lone bird rests trembles when
it flies, I, too, trembled when God sent down his
adjutant. Not for her the hardening of arteries, the
parchment look or smell of age, a slow closing down of
the will, or a heart putting sleep before duty. She went
with undimmed eyes, skin as smooth as glass, a young
bride in all but the potholed landscape of her body.
Just as no rainbow's end hides gold, no stepping stones
on earth will lead me to her. Loss has made me a child
again, clinging onto battered old toys, suspicious of new
delights, envious of others' happiness, hiding my wants
and needs behind a swagger, trying to lose this awful pain
in ways which only make it worse.
We have not seen her gentle eyes for many a year,
eyes which I opened to love, and just as tenderly closed
while mine ran wet with helpless tears. She was the
lock which God made to fit my key, and since that door
closed, finally, none other have I sought to open.
Once rarely heard, the sounds of lonlinesshave become
old friends--the rattle of the letterbox, the cistern
refilling, crackling woodfire, rain against the window.
If she had been given more years than grassblades on
the lawn, I would still want more. I knew as that last
day wore on, that very soon warm winds would soften
the land, frozen rivers would start to move again,
the bare branches outside our window would get their Spring,
but by nightfall she would be gone. And I prayed to be
taken with her, to be one dust with hers, to ride
the same breezes, to settle on the same grassy mounds.
The sea at Southwold glides in and out of the darkness.
Beyond it, oil-rig lights skate on the flat sea.
The night is comforting and generous with its sandwiches
and wine. As the years roll by, solemnly in line like
circus elephants, I shall be here, sometimes alone,
other times not, to feel these soft sands beneath my heels,
....and to remember.
Southwold, Suffolk 251003
