LOVES NOT LOST                                                                          

Thinking of loves long gone, loves of learning, yearning,

burning inside, of passion for life, memories sown firm and

deep in the garden of a soul still fertile, growing strong,

enduring. I know their vigour because I seek them out,

youth having slipped slowly away, leaving me to

rest on laurels once weaved by young lovers who

wanted my heat, believed in my heart, listened to my mind.

Such loves were not of common kind.

 

There is no clever compliment I can wash around my head;

thank you is all I need – thank you for all those moments

when pairs of bright eyes, glistening, met half-way to melt,

the touch of hand on hand a surge, electric, all life’s lights

turned on, all things in clear definition; when bodies

merged and melded into one, long winter nights, storing warmth,

or stretching up to heaven under blue summer skies.

These loves were full, no compromise.

 

I should confess now, lest I mislead: I did not know these

moments might live on despite sounds and sights all

now long gone. Yet they hold high place in my battered

chest called memory – not because they are live loves still,

they have altered shape as every new day comes and goes,

changing all that is recalled, the motley mix of this and that.

But are they one-way loves, that most will never know or hear?

Is there a part of me held dear?

 

I wonder whether it’s safe to say this kind of loving –

how will it be received, how understood? I think I know

I am not alone in this, though none has spoken similarly.

I hesitate to go part way, in simile and metaphor, for

what I need to share needs to be heard, stripped of

word cosmetics, diversionary embellishment. No,

I must say hear me and find some room inside

to tell yourself not all has died.

 

Is it not a denial if I do not seek old loves and not

acknowledge what in me is really them? Would you, or you,

shudder at the thought of being there, and more than welcome?

I’d like to think that one, or two, might be glad, amused

to know they are in part encapsulated, that they have

gifted something special to another – a sort of lover/brother –

they helped to build and gently shape to make the man

I was to be and now I am.

 

Enough now said, you rest beside my deepest thoughts

way down within. I know that you are listening for things I

say or do that are a bit of me but more of you. And you will

sing from time to time as yours is a spirit that must flow free

when tomorrow, or the next day, I pass and know the

shake of a head, a shout of laughter, a tear in an eye -

little things that, through and through, are trademark you.

Such loves have changed but remain true.