Vespers: Parousia by Louise Gluck
Love of my life, you
are lost and I am
young again.
A few years pass.
The air fills
with girlish music;
in the front yard
the apple tree is
studded with blossoms.
I try to win you back,
that is the point
of the writing.
But you are gone forever,
as in Russian novels, saying
a few words I don't remember --
How lush the world is,
how full of things that don't belong to me --
I watch the blossoms shatter,
no longer pink,
but old, old, a yellowish white--
the petals seem
to float on the bright grass,
fluttering slightly.
What a nothing you were,
to be changed so quickly
into an image, an odor --
you are everywhere, source
of wisdom and anguish.
-------
from The Wild Iris
are lost and I am
young again.
A few years pass.
The air fills
with girlish music;
in the front yard
the apple tree is
studded with blossoms.
I try to win you back,
that is the point
of the writing.
But you are gone forever,
as in Russian novels, saying
a few words I don't remember --
How lush the world is,
how full of things that don't belong to me --
I watch the blossoms shatter,
no longer pink,
but old, old, a yellowish white--
the petals seem
to float on the bright grass,
fluttering slightly.
What a nothing you were,
to be changed so quickly
into an image, an odor --
you are everywhere, source
of wisdom and anguish.
-------
from The Wild Iris