To S, After Years Apart
Dusk. The horse no one calls
begins to amble home from the fields.
I open the door of time
and breath the misty, incomparable autumn.
The I go again to find the old woman
who lives just beyond the turn
in the road. She has a potion
that cures the ailments of love.
Half our lives we’ve been sick
with a passion that bent our bones
the way a child bends a sapling in play
pulling the leaves to the ground.
By now, nothing can untangle
the branches.
But as I knew, the old woman is gone.
Her house long ago abandoned.
Night will come soon and dark solitude.
I’ll sit by the fire and watch
the wood of fate burn. It takes
many years to turn to ash.
Then our confused and inconsolable
passion will twist itself
around my heart like smoke
drifting from the chimney.
by Lou Lipsitz
from Seeking the Hook
Signal Books, 1997