fall awake-

I was rocked like a child
by your movements in sleep.

it allowed me to place you in my world,
left,
near,
leaden.

but before I return,
let me tell you something I think I have learned,
just now.

age is settling itself upon me,
and holding my hand on Tuesdays,
when I used to bound restlessly
but now simply
turn,
ruffled by the wake of things like death
and distance,
concepts new to this life.

it is easier to let beauty pass,
not to grip it hard,
but to anticipate it's going.

I think it will return,
in hands on a bus rail,
or a hawthorne bloom;
but this is small.

I weary.
I ennervate.
I tremble at the end of phone lines.

and still,
your simple nocturnal pulse holds more for me than I could put to paper.

this is love, at this age.

beautiful, it is.



GLS
6.10.98