All that crawls, walks and flies,
All that is beautiful, and more beautiful, dies.
Love that shoots up in flames of love, like fire,
Dies in the fire burning and dying, dies in its own desire.
We thought love would last forever, but knew
Even as we loved most intensely, this wasn’t true.
We argued—Romantic versus Modern—an argument primitive and wild,
The oldest argument—for and against the child.
There on the stairs she stood.
Beneath every sky I knew she was good.
Long futurity, the only repair for the question of death,
Was ours to kiss, the mouth, the lips, inside the lips, and the breath.
We kissed on the stairs, and more stairs, to escape the eyes
That might see us. But the love that sees itself, still dies.
See the love in the moon, the moon in tempestuous skies.
We had questions and arguments. I said only the child
Makes fires over graves, and turns horror to the responsible and the mild.