Marion Strobel

From “Perennials”

I

WILL you not stay away?—and let me be

Alone with you? Or must you always throw

The present with its infidelity

In front of my too weary eyes, and so

Smear with facts the frail pastel that I

Have made of all our past, in which I live

With you again, again the world defy

And all the cynics who could not forgive

A happiness they could not understand?

O love, a bridge stencilled with lies I cross

To yesterday; I find our promised land

Again, and you. I do not feel a loss:

If you but stay away, my You will be

Clearer than any actuality.

How can I offer you the dull, frayed song

Of love I know? Each word would stumble on

A memory; and I should see a long

Blurred line of faces grimacing upon

A musty curtain of the past…. Ah, no….

Let me be silent…. Words would only sound

A monotone: a toxic, cloying flow

Of echoes would sift through, and eddy round

My voice, and all the rapture that I feel

Would turn into a harlequin and steal

Away beneath the vivid, measured hum

Of mockery. Ah, dearest, may there come

An ecstasy of stillness in each day,

That you may sense the thoughts I dare not say!