Song for Eric

image from google

If I were to
see you
only one more time,
this lifetime,
those kind dark eyes,
head and beard
now sprinkled white,
I would
give you that hug
I have been saving
since we parted,
hoping  one day
that our love story
would come right.

I remember
Blackbird singing
through our nighttimes,
and the coo of doves
at daybreak
when we'd stir,
watching the morning
rise behind the greenhouse.
As you pulled the curtains open,
I would wake.

If I had known that
that one year
was all I'd have
to know true love
that disappeared so fast,
I would have held on
harder,
tighter, longer,
maybe long enough to
quell my fear
at last.

Sometimes we choose wrong
and hang on for a long time.
Sometimes we choose right,
and run away too soon.
You opened the dove's door
when I told you I was leaving.
What I wanted was a promise.
Might as well have asked the moon.

We were young.
We only knew
how love had hurt us.
But those summer days
live in my memory.
All these years
when I had withdrawn
from the game,
my heart has circled,
always circled
round your name.

Opening Heaven's Gate

[image from google]


for Eric

Blackbirds wheel across the sky.
My mind goes back to summer days
when doves cooed at daybreak, eagles flew,
and my whole heart belonged to you.

You sprang the gate and out dove flew.
No more we'd hear its gentle coo,
and years and miles have grown between
us, and all we might have been.

Never again those mornings sweet,
my heart turned your way with every beat.

###################################
and, as a pantoum:

Blackbirds wheel across the sky.

My mind goes back to summer days
when doves cooed at daybreak, eagles flew,
and my whole heart belonged to you.

My mind goes back to summer days.
You sprang  dove's gate and out it flew.
Though my whole heart belonged to you,
no more we'd hear its gentle coo.

You sprang dove's gate and out it flew,
and years and miles have grown between.
No more we heard its gentle coo,
nor found all that we might have been.

Years and miles have grown between.
Never again those mornings sweet,
Us, and all we might have been,
My heart turned your way with every beat.

Never again those mornings sweet,
When doves cooed at daybreak, eagles flew,
My heart turned your way with every beat.
Blackbirds wheel; I remember you.