“Love is an accident” —old saying
What misses us—is not—you and me.
Desire is slavery—and you and I are free.
How did this warm evening find you and I together at the entrance of the park
Where on beautiful warm evenings we once held each other in the dark?
This is a warm evening too,
But warm evenings—no—everything—is forbidden now to me and you.
You and I accidentally cross paths going home
By the same way, and I hurry on, and do not dare to look at you,
But it makes me feel things, and I’m sure it makes you feel things, too,
Having been here many times together, and now each of us alone.
It is late October and the growing darkness and the first autumn freeze
Makes tonight’s surprising mild air—and by chance, seeing you—a night I will remember,
More so than when our love was fully expressed, and your head lay gently upon my chest—remember?
Before I reach my door, still thinking of you, I linger in front of a large tree sighing in the breeze.
On high is a bright white three-quarter moon
Moving on to fullness, and I make a wish because of this, that we might be reunited soon,
Though I’m not allowed to have thoughts like this
Because desire is slavery and poison lives in a slave’s kiss.
What misses us is what kisses us—the solemn world of the outdoors, nature and her man-made park
Where we worshiped everything from dawn to dark.
Isn’t it strange, how the more we ought to remember, the more of that we ought to remember, we forget?
And here, where I glimpsed you only for an instant, here, by this poem, memory will pay its debt?
The poem’s idea: a mild breeze and thoughts of you are enough to make me glad,
As I stand in front of the moon and a tall tree rustling, and hear you speaking. Am I mad
To think the park misses us, and wonders where we are? That nature felt our love
And this is what misses our love—not reluctant you, not selfish me?
Desire is slavery—in my mind I keep seeing your dear face—and you and I are free.
