PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

In this place and time,
the landscape looks like late autumn---
what might have been alive
is caught in a dying moment.
Our life times, they say, will triple
our parents', quadruple our grandparents'
in a world they would have declared
hostile.
My wife, my sole beloved,
herself unique in all existence,
died a century ago
in one of those accidents
we have not quite learned how to prevent.
My evenings' boredom
especially with the bleak view
outside my many windows,
led me to begin the Equations.
When I fully understood them,
I learned that time travel
was simply a line between two perspectives---
one could be exited,
the other could not be entered,
only observed,
like a cherished painting the artist had endued
with endless motion and transformation
here in this place that once had been
an abandoned pasture bounded by
low stone walls (some ancient farmer's work).
There I often went with her.
Now I return, no longer participant:
so that we, as I say it, is really them.
Grass, wildflowers, and sturdy, tall trees
adorned this place we thought of as our own,
although it was not (at least not then),
where we were more welcome than at home.
I looked more feminine than I had thought,
with my long hair and slender build;
and she was more beautiful
than all the then visible stars combined,
and why oh why was she there with me?
Her hair and mine were almost the same length,
styled in the same cascades of flowing curls,
well below the shoulders,
defying style.
Matching polo shirts; our bell-bottom jeans
were faded to perfected
pastel blue softness.
Our dislike of shoes was a shared passion,
shoes prohibited in that holy place.
Our dark blue socks did not admit grass stain,
or any other evidence
where we had been.
That place, as it had been,
was more than sufficient for us.
Sometimes we bought a deck of cards;
sometimes, a balsa wood flying toy;
and always our adolescent desires
for the next degree of kisses and caresses.
We were more alive then than I am now.
The earth was more alive than dead.
And when did that become insufficient?
Sometimes, in those moments we thought of
as intimate and belonging only to us,
we thought someone was watching us;
sometimes a glimpse from our eyes' corners
over to the pasture's corners
revealed some hideous old codger---
and did he seem to grin and weep at once?

Starward