MY love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in a
last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.
I dance at the Christmas party
Under the
mistletoe
Along
with a ripe, slack country lass
Jostling to and fro.
The big, soft country lass,
Like a loose sheaf of
wheat
Slipped
through my arms on the threshing floor
At my
feet.
The warm, soft country lass,
Sweet as an armful of
wheat
At
threshing-time broken, was broken
For me, and ah, it was
sweet!
Now I am going home
Fulfilled and alone,
I see the great Orion
standing
Looking
down.
He’s the star of my first beloved
Love-making.
The witness of all that
bitter-sweet
Heart-aching.
Now he sees this as well,
This last commission.
Nor do I get any
look
Of
admonition.
He can add the reckoning up
I suppose, between now and
then,
Having
walked himself in the thorny, difficult
Ways of
men.
He has done as I have done
No doubt:
Remembered and
forgotten
Turn and
about.
My love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in the
last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.
She fares in the stark immortal
Fields of death;
I in these goodly,
frozen
Fields
beneath.
Something in me remembers
And will not forget.
The stream of my life in the
darkness
Deathward
set!
And something in me has forgotten,
Has ceased to
care.
Desire comes
up, and contentment
Is debonair.
I, who am worn and careful,
How much do I
care?
How is it I
grin then, and chuckle
Over despair?
Grief, grief, I suppose and sufficient
Grief makes us
free
To be
faithless and faithful together
As we have to be.