Poetry

On Losing

Will you love me still, when I am old and the pain
has come — when the wind breaks down the willow tree
with its feeble limbs aching for the warmth of life again,
for bustling, building activity of bird's nests, to sway
with gentle breezes in summer's long-lingering twilight,
to reach for the sun until its leaves are scorched
and limbs like peanut-brittle snap with winter's white
sheet overbearing cover — or will love have reached
its peak too soon?  Must I then die alone
with the willow, wishing for what might have been?

---

Would you come to my house today
to play with me?  And could you stay
to listen to my dreams, and may cry
with me, and hold me?  Would you try
to comfort me, or would you only lie
to me as others have and simply say
that you're too busy to come to play
with me anymore?

I have touched
the stars with
my imagination,
but I have also
dredged the ocean's
bottom with
my experience.
I have seen the
sunlight in eyes
which glisten
brightly with life,
but I have also
seen them icy-blue
in cold indifference.
Life has blessed me
with a gift for
easy acquaintance
and quiet adaptability,
but not
with a gift
for love.

The lonely man
comes searching.
Life has somehow
passed him along
the winding path
which leads nowhere
and everywhere.
He searches other
lonely faces, finding
no solace in the
universality of his
plight, finding no
comfort in the sympathy
of those who have
someone to love,
finding no purpose
in seeking tomorrow
and no peace in
passing on beyond.
He is a butterfly
on the wind,
traveling here
and there,
touching the moments,
struggling to affect
their course, but
helpless to change them.

Come walk with me along the shore
and let the waves reach for you,
as I do.  Feel the energy the ocean stores
released in violent motion, to throw
its life against the rocks.

Come walk with me in rolling fields
and let my arms reach for you.
Feel the growing love, as emotion builds,
released in violent passion, to throw
its life against your indifference.

I have travelled
many miles
in discomfort,
searching for
a lonely smile
to light my way.
I have found
smiling faces,
but they were
not lonely,
and I have found
lonely ones,
unsmiling.

There is a look
in the eyes
only the lonely
recognize.
It is a
universal
language,
bequeathed by
hours spent in
humble solitude —
the struggle
to survive,
the ache
to realize
the hope,
the dreams
of love's
sweet screams
in vast oceans
of consummation.

A glance
may show it.
The lonely
know it,
and look away,
fearfully,
into the darkness.

I cried today
because a lover went away.
I'll cry again tomorrow
because the hurt and sorrow
of remembering will be too great,
but it's better to cry than to hate
a lover, even in hurting,
because in flowing tears feeling
cannot fester into an infection
which can't be healed by affection
from another lover.

Hiding here in the secrecy
of my inner chamber, security
seems simple.  It is a poem
stated without fanfare, and time
to meditate upon its meaning.
It is work, and the learning
which comes with life's disappointments.
It is thinking, and the anoinment
of salve on wounds grown
deep and hard.  It is known
as melancholia, and it seems
to gather strength.  It is dreams
which sour, and aspirations gone
amuck.  It is living alone.

Betrayal comes so easily,
like the thieves in the night
who do their dark deeds quickly
in the blackness of the shrouded sight
of good men sleeping in their
steel-gray coffins with picket
fences and lonely mailboxes.

It doesn't hurt so much anymore,
just the stale-dull pain
of the familiar when you swore
the same could never come again,
but of course it follows, just
as surely as the darkness
follows day.

It doesn't hurt so much anymore.
It doesn't hurt so much.
It doesn't hurt ...

In memories
which plague
reluctant hearts
there lies
some meaning,
but it is
beyond my
humble recognition,
and there
it remains
beyond understanding
and thus
beyond significance.

I watch the lonely people in their places,
their faces sullen in the smokey darkness.
They might laugh and play the love games,
but their eyes can't disguise the pain
of never knowing anyone truly, fully.

We might have met in such an atmosphere.
I might have smiled.  You might have stayed to hear
my crying.  I could have eased your distress
and you could have healed my aching loneliness
by accepting one not good at games and loving him.

Instead, I sit and sip my drink
and watch the lonely people.  I think
perhaps you'll never come to save
me from my desparation, but I gave
you every chance to find me.

The cork bobbed down, and then again.
The old man slept, a dreaming grin
crept upon his wrinkled face.  Long gone
loves were being lived again, swaying
there in the silence of an autumn
afternoon.  He began to nod in ryhthm
with the cork, and soon
awakened, to fight the tightening line
and bring in the prize, and wonder
about what was forgotten.  A tiny tear
ran down, where once there'd been a grin —
when long gone loves were being lived again.

I have gathered
all my strength
around me
like a blanket,
and I'm prepared
to face
the coming storm
in solitude,
for I have found
that depending
on another
for support
is a hopeless
undertaking.

I just returned from the cold
room, where I watched the old
pain-strained face ache with smile
and speech to attack the vile
visage of death and conquer it.
As tears streamed down to sit
upon his cheek, and methiolate red
intermingled with white of walls, bed-
sheets and floor to bring the fear.
In that instant, I wished to endure
his pain for him, for I deserve
it far more, and should I live
to be a hundred years, what
he's given others freely will not
have been returned.  There will never
be time enough to satisfy — a better
man will not fill his shoes when
he's gone.  We will simply go on,
diminished.  A little love will have
left this world — far to much to give
when we have so little to spare.
Life and love and death are never fair.

I am heavy with
the knowledge that grief
cannot sustain — that you
remain removed from us.
You no longer hear
my pain, nor see my
confusion, nor know my
circumstance.  I have lost
my clinging-rock and must
now swim with strides
of my own resolution.
I still seek your strength,
and still plead to your
pure heart, but know
that all you had to
teach has been conveyed.
You lost no opportunity.
You bequeathed a love
born in compassion and
sympathetic spirit.  I seem
a poor pupil, but plod
on in hope that lessons
are still to be learned
and that songs are yet
to be sung in your honor.

Once a little boy
believed in God
and preached to
the masses gathered
behind the bedroom
mirror.  His eloquent
delivery assured
his fame and fortune
and a place among
the angels.

Now there is a man
who stares into the
reflection of a stream
of tears upon the glass.
The crowds have gathered
behind another's mirror.
The angels' voices long
have dimmed, no longer
to be heard.  This man
cries alone.