How Often

How often have I sought You when the lapwings

cry, and the earth is shattered by winter? Or when

the wind comes so cold on me from the bright

mauve peppered sky, and I, speaking your name

have stopped, wrists unbraceleted, the same

as before, yet different, separate? Why would

rain not be the same without You, or the grass, springy

underfoot not forget the tread of where You were, my love?

As often as I sought meaning in the corners of a silent hour,

in the loveliness of a single evenings English sky, in the

quick step along the cobbles where You and I have watched

the people go by, in every hour that I have known. And my

lips know too, when they kiss You goodbye, every bone

of the hand that has held mine in the heather and over

oceans, I know by sight or blinded, in the light or sunken

shadow of a dry, open shell. You were there to find

when I said how often, how often I had sought You,

You who know not the fear of mine that days

are taken away from us in hours. I’m in a sweet, strange

place now that the seasons have changed and I walk the

meandering lanes in mists and woodsmoke, alone,

rearranged, not quite without You, until the slow

choking start of morning breaks over the city, departing

so that I sometimes think perhaps I could forget You,

that we could be apart? I think it, but my heart. My heart.