Love's Last Opportunity

(Opportunity being the key word in this week's Thursday Think Tank #101 at http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.co.uk/ )


Let us go back for a moment,
hand-in-hand as we were, you and I,
the year we first built our castles of sand,
first saw the ocean rise in its fury,
first talked of abroad.
How you shone like early light on the sea!
How you shimmered with glee!
Back then was some happy,
and all the happy there was
was between us.

How could we know that our ocean,
the ocean we said we would cross
together, was also between us, the crossing not pleasure,
but a dream to be chosen or not,
the choice strictly ours, now laid out between
the ocean and happy?
Why did we choose as we did?

Don't look: we are back for this moment together,
face to face and across
the landscape remembered, dragged out from the ocean of time,
unexpectedly brought here together,
waves cutting us off from our prime.
We may never again
be now or be then to unsing the song of that time
or give ear to the song that remains in the waves,
tumbled and turned and churned against cliffs
that will crumble to dust in the foam and its mist.

You said you would fly -
Look! There is the swing where I pushed you
so high! And you laughed. Then:
Throw me beyond the horizon! you called
as some engine somewhere that drove us was stalled
and nothing was left of us then but the words:
words in their thousands, words more than the stars
words that we'd strung to infinity, words
not making sense. Something to trip on, to break arm or neck.
A trap, a disaster, a threat, total wreck.
Let's pick up the pieces, clear up the beach -
and see what we left and is still within reach.