306 and 307

O thou who owest not the one who writes,

who knowest when and where the time shall be,

do kindly make the most of these mad nights

when he who writes hath no candle to see.

Be kind, I say, who holds the candle flame,

to me, when I’ve misplaced my final match.

I search the dark with all the self disdain

that will, in such a blindness, quickly catch.

Thine is the light that comes, in time, to me,

but walls prevent the flame to bend my way.

Speak kindly of me in thy memory

when, on thy past, thou might be called to say.

I searched in many wrong places for thee,

think not thy past the dunce, as I do me.

~~~

A boy and I walked on a desert trail,

blue mountains were our guardians that day;

and threadbare and quite thin became the veil

that hid the boy from truths I could not say.

I think he knew, though, more than what he said.

If so, I was not able to prevent

how hopeful eyes would have interpreted

the hopelessness I could not circumvent.

“Our future will not be what it should be,”

had been the summary of all my words,

“but I have you, and you, too, will have me;

and we will breathe, and listen to the birds.”

That day, the air was filled with petrichor.

The weeping heavens gave us nothing more.