(no subject)
April Morning Walk
Brian Patten
So many of those girls I loved are gone now,
Gone to ash that skin so inexpertly kissed,
Those stomachs I was hot for, gone beyond diaries into flame.
When the years tore up our surface beauty and threw it away
Like the bright wrappings on a parcel
What was left was what links all the breathing world, an empathy,
The buried knowledge of our going.
It's so easy to forget how the years have poured away
And taken out of sequence and before their time
So many who deserved to stay longer on this lush earth.
Along the streets in which I walked with them
The horse chestnut leaves are opening like Chinese fans
The dawn's clear light varnishes houses and gardens
And freezes forever under its glittering surface
So much half-remembered anguish.
Brian Patten
So many of those girls I loved are gone now,
Gone to ash that skin so inexpertly kissed,
Those stomachs I was hot for, gone beyond diaries into flame.
When the years tore up our surface beauty and threw it away
Like the bright wrappings on a parcel
What was left was what links all the breathing world, an empathy,
The buried knowledge of our going.
It's so easy to forget how the years have poured away
And taken out of sequence and before their time
So many who deserved to stay longer on this lush earth.
Along the streets in which I walked with them
The horse chestnut leaves are opening like Chinese fans
The dawn's clear light varnishes houses and gardens
And freezes forever under its glittering surface
So much half-remembered anguish.