When I am old and struggling to move,
I’ll think about you here, upon this beach;
Though many sorrows, pains there be that prove
That youth and all its warmth are beyond reach,
But only physically. For in my mind
I’ll see your hat, your tan, the lotion smell,
And know that while we left such days behind,
They live in those who still recall them well.
For I’ve known pain. I’ve known it by the hour;
It never leaves except to come again —
But memories of what is good have power
To lighten, some, the ladenest of men.
By this small thing, to spare your skin from rays,
I get the gift of better older days
Slowly, leaning slightly, shuffling
Two together, down a gentle incline
Towards the lake. The shadows
Break the field, as autumn welcomes
Two of its own children to its midst.
Love: it grows and changes,
Leaving things behind it didn’t need
And focused on the future,
Emerging fresh from seasons past,
And reaching less for speed than for
Each other
See: the fall blends into winter,
Effortless, like floating clouds,
Just as we have aged, my darling:
Passing times of joy like
Floating clouds
See the birds, they know the reason:
Season must give way to season,
Still they sing, to celebrate their flight —
Our times of joy like
Birds in flight
You and I belong together,
Through all change in clime, or weather —
Floating clouds and singing birds,
Blended seasons past all words,
Winter stars, and golden fall days,
You and I together
Always
I know a place of green and blue
With aging fence and turning breeze,
Where once I ran when life was new,
And I was at my ease —
It is now as it ever was.
My feet can feel the downy grass;
I see, from off the riverside
Some bluebirds as they pass —
And memory, that liar’s torch,
Finds confirmation in the fact
Of all that was and is, without
Commotion to distract
For only in the emptiness
Of what is felt when mind is stilled
Could I know what has gone amiss
With what my heart’s been filled —
I know a place of open field
Where I am young again, in mind,
And where there still is space to run,
Or even leave some things
Behind
the settled peace of harbor time,
a walk upon the windy docks,
and hands that intertwined without
a thought of anything —
you tangled were in many dreams,
the settled peace of harbor time;
somewhere, lost in the silence, i
don’t let creep in my life —
the years have come, like hammer blows,
and noise drowns out the memory;
the settled peace of harbor time
that laps at consciousness
for now i’m aging, old and gray,
and safe within a southern clime –
with sound, a wall my thoughts to rein —
from settled peace
and harbor time
A castle stood upon the rise,
But long ago;
A glint beneath the sunny skies,
A golden glow
For childhood imagining
Had made it so:
To get it back is maddening.
The cold winds blow
Across the bleak, deserted field
Of yesterday:
Where knights who’ve lost their sword and shield
Just fade away
he struggling now with patterns, all
these shapes and corners, somewhere
is his home; i know, i’ve seen him on
the street or on this bench, and so i
lead him to the green door round the
way; the shapes and patterns: crosses
on the door, and in the windows; plants
that hang from fraying ropes; and calendars
of years and years before that line the
walls within a paneled room he calls a
study. then he thanks me, and i go, only
to see an hour hence, he’s back again, and
struggling with patterns, all these shadows that
mislead a man, and make him think that time has
been more kind
