Oft I remember those I have known
In other days, to whom my heart was lead
As by a magnet, and who are not dead,
But absent, and their memories overgrown
With other thoughts and troubles of my own,
As graves with grasses are, and at their head
The stone with moss and lichens so o’er spread,
Nothing is legible but the name alone.
And is it so with them? After long years.
Do they remember me in the same way,
And is the memory pleasant as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
And yet the root perennial may be.

I have forgotten
the song I wrote for mother
just before she died.

1561

No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay—
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away—
The Snow and he are intimate—
I’ve often seem them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity—
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent Evergreens—
His Larder—terse and Militant—
Unknown—refreshing things—
His Character—a Tonic—
His future—a Dispute—
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out—

this isn't a poem
it's not beautiful
it's not special
just reality

but the honest truth is
i'm just trying to
pretend for one little second
that i'm enough for you

i imagine your laugh
and a slow, sensuous smile
spreading across your lips
as you read these words

but this isn't a poem
filled to the brim
with words of love
just reality

how do you create
those tender words
that caress me
where so few can?

i imagine your eyes
under heavy lashes
lowering as you think
of those precious moments

this isn't a poem
just reality