free-verse27 lines

In Those Old Days

In those old days you were called beautiful,

But I have worn the beauty from your face;

The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek

With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes

Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on

Beauty and the remembrance of things gone.

Even your voice is altered when you speak,

Or is grown mute with old anxiety

For me.

Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns

Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight,

And then under the flame a glowing dome

Deepens slowly into blood-like light:--

So did you flame and in flame take delight,

So are you hollow'd now with aching fire.

But I still warm me and make there my home,

Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly

For me.

Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull,

My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks,

Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught,

Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours:

Now love undying feeds on love beautiful,

Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ...

--And can it be in your heart's music speaks

A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be

Indeed for me?