I can’t draw, but
I let my pen wander
across the page
while I think of you, and
the lines flow gracefully
*********
poems
reminiscences
dreams –
I watch myself writing
letters to a dead man
*********
your notebooks –
old lines that linger
to show me
you not only loved me
you listened and heard
*********
we quoted
from certain poems
certain lines –
in ways that made them
secret messages
The dream is always of you,
my obsession, fixation: sad
love, lost love, past love, true…
Are dreams a defence against going mad?
Well, to live sometimes there
in that far, irrecoverable past,
is better, perhaps, than nowhere
to seek you, being always lost.
To seek you, being always lost,
is better, perhaps, than nowhere
in that far, irrecoverable past –
but well to live, sometimes, there.
Are dreams a defence against going mad?
Love, lost love, past love, true …
my obsession, fixation – the sad
dream is always of you.
The few to whom I tell our story think you must have been the love of my life. I don’t like to think in those terms. I have also loved others well. How could I put you above my dear Andrew, my third and last husband, my happiest marriage? He was such a dear, we were so close, best friends as well as lovers.
But then, I could not say I loved him more than you – even though no loves could have been more different.
You are certainly one of the loves of my life! Though I won’t say I loved you the most, neither could I truthfully say that I ever loved anyone more.
May you rest in peace! (May all my dear, dead loves rest in peace.)
an old lady
many years later
I think of you
whenever love is mentioned –
always that leap of my heart
The title was a prompt at the Tanka Poets On Site group on facebook.
Hello mountain, hello river,
hello clouds, hello sky,
hello trees trees trees trees
trees trees trees,
hello hills that I ride on
in my little white car,
hello magpies, hello ibis,
hello miners, hello crows
hello Spring sun starting,
hello ocean over the ridge,
hello streets of my little town,
hello house, up the end
of the tiny cul-de-sac,
hello home that surrounds me:
Earth, Sun, Water, Sky.