spread out across the ocean's face and lie
about wet rocks beneath the heavy sky,
and when the porcelain sun ascended on
dry breezes searching through an empty day
along the water's edge, I thought of you.
and on them send my love as I would send
myself; I hope that you will wear them pinned
near to your heart just as I carry you
in mine; and when you wear them, think of me
above the miles that will no longer be.
my warmest Ann,
sincerest Ann,
how many times the moon
must pass in judgment of the stars
before your Gemini may
lay eyes on you again?
much I love you; you're on my mind my every waking
moment. I drive, I wish that you were next
to me; I walk, I want you walking with me.
I want to hold your hand. I eat, your
absence is acute; I lie in bed, the void
beside me is less than only that inside of me.
I want to hold you in my arms and kiss you and
my heavy heart with wanting you cries out to have
you here where I can care for you, where I can hold
you in my arms and comfort you. My emptiness without
your warmth, my loneliness without your touch is cold,
so cold without my Ann to draw a tear.
Though you are nearer now than yesterday you were,
my knowledge of that fact makes you no less remote,
nor will, until I'm joined with you again, my Love.
take, I think of you. I cook, I wish it
were for both of us; I wash my dishes, I wish
it only were for you. I run, you monitor my
pace; I sit, you monitor my mind. I but live
from Sunday last to Sunday next when I can talk
my better judgment, counsels me to throw good sense
away, and follow the ambition of my heart.
I would that we were free of practicality
that binds us to a decade yet to come and to
the years beyond as well; but we must wait and let
tomorrow set itself, however far away it seems.
If I can stand the emptiness not having you
with me, the rest of time will tend its course, and we
can see the joys of life and love first hand,
retaining youth until our final loving days.
unto the limitless expanse of Time
you are a rose I'd pluck from off the vine
and nurture you where you could smile on me;
you are a brittle moth I'd keep to touch
your softness in my need, a tender thrush
I'd have to sing to me; you are the trees
that give me shade, the supple grass in which
I lie, the wind caressing me, the sea
that whispers love to me and comforts me;
you are the sun and I would bathe in thee;
you are my mind, my poetry. I can
but wait for time to pass until you're mine,
for you are me: my love, my life, my Ann.
did yesterday. Experience, they say,
improves technique - although 'technique' is - by
the common sense - inapropos: no 'way'
As time expands between us, so my love
increase daily from the day before;
in missing you, experience I have -
I daresay - gained; and therefore, though I need
not practice loving you and missing you;
each day compounds my love for you. Indeed
the irony is this: in loving you
increasingly from day to day, and as
each day I gain experience to miss
you greater than on all my yesterdays,
my daily missing you can but increase!
and every time I think of you I will.
Now as I wait for you,
I can't, except I know that while
I'm gone you'll want me to.
will this time
that separates us never end?
the distance matters little
for it is quickly overcome,
but can't we alter time's slow pace?
Without you here these many weeks
I am but a cripple;
and though I can be cured but by your smile,
I have to wait until
the calendar is nearly torn away
before I can again see, hear, speak, or
walk without the interference
of my longing for your fragrance.
and at night you are the stars;
your absence is my darkness
and my emptiness every evening.
When I'm with you I'm strong,
a virile bull, impatient;
without you I'm small and weak,
an insect-life unknown.
In your presence time is meaningless,
an entity of no consequence;
while you're gone, time surrounds
me, masters me, drags me down.
With you, I move in symphony -
nay, all else in harmony with me;
when I'm not with you I lose
all sense of motion and of poetry.
So make the sun to rise, and
be for me my stars; so
make me strong and give me life;
love me, Ann, and stay with me . . .
always.
on my balcony
I taste the fresh damp darkness
of the evening;
I listen to the stars
hidden by a layer of cloud
and watch the breezes;
the sea is still tonight,
motionless along its shore.
Missing you,
I cannot share
the gentle beauty of this night
while you're not here.
I think of you and wish you well, asleep
three thousand miles gone
beneath the darkness of your own night
where you are without me.
beating on the rocks, spilling sand
and seaweed on the beach, spreading salt
across the strand as though to sterilize the shore
denying it the nourishment of life; I see
the hungry waves beneath a precipice of sod
licking at a yung tree's roots exposed
too early to the fluctuations of the elements.
I listen to the breathing of the wind and watch
the massive clouds unfold between the stars
and me. Wondering how many tides
will rise and fall before I can
see her again, I feel
the chill of evening envelope me;
but then, I know the cold that shivers
me is not the damp of night,
and so, my eyelids closed, I sigh
and let my tears spread salt upon my feet
while I listen to the waves' unceasing sound.
among the trees,
grass licking at my feet,
I listen to the quiet hiss
and wander without aim,
awaiting her return.
Each morning I awaken
to a day
still wrapped in its gray blanket
and listen to the way
the foghorn's echo of my heart's lament,
my plaintive moan that she's not here
with me. I wait for her.
cowers at our feet
and bids us wait no more,
as we have stood the proof
of cruel separation
and have earned each other's love, have won
our pride and our devotion.
It soon will be no longer
we must wait alone
and miserable with
but our thoughts of one
another, missing one another.
For, delicate sweet Ann,
we will be joined soon
once again, in love,
but more than this
we will be again
together.
blooming now without me
and yet will bloom
more beautiful in the sunlight
of our love
when we are once again
together.
waiting for the sunlight
of our love to color me
that I may complement
your radiance and nourish you
when we are once again
together.
and I'll caress the cloud on which you walk;
but look at me and I will melt;
but touch me and I become a flame
raging unquenchable but by your hand.
Tell me that you love me
and I stand astride the world;
I ride upon its back and break it as a wild mare;
Deny me and I'll have the world stand up and rend itself apart;
but ask, I'll mend it for you once again.
With you I'm weightless, a feather in the wind;
I'm quick, a flash of light in darkness;
I am a song sung but for you:
so speak to me, look at me, touch me,
tell me that you love me, Ann,
for I am yours and yours alone
. . .forever