The ballad of a life he lived too long

 

 

We found a pool of sphagnum

glowing in a shaft of sunlight:

an emerald pinned

to the forest's heart.

 

She stepped onto the moss;

it oozed around her feet;

she danced; her mauve apron dress,

her carnival eyes.

 

She was humming,

sending her semi-song to me,

and as the sun held her dazzling,

I was in darkness, standing aside.              

 

I saw how the light loved her hair,

fingered its goldness

while she was spinning down;

and the moss was at her knees.                   

 

She was laughing,

she was always laughing,

but I could see the cold bursting

spring growth in her face.

 

And then her hair was spreading out,

the green carpet creeping up to her neck;

she, her young face

on the floor of the forest.

 

Later, when the sun had left,

left the forest to the circuit-making spiders and me;

still standing by the sphagnum pool

I was repeating " good-bye, good-bye, good-bye".