Here I Am, Waiting
Here I am, waiting, while the cold
night grows ever darker
And the thin crescent moon
Disappears.
There were the moments of hope - of excuses
As to why she did not call
But the hours, the slow hours, dragged them away
Until he was left, alone, bent, desperate but not desperate
Because unwilling even then to fully believe
His loss.
He loved her so much; he had loved her so much -
She, of the weeks of passionate new love -
And he held, again, her card, reading, reading until the tears came
To my darling, I love you
What was there left? Where was the future they shared, deeply
In those weeks when three decades of mutual sorrow, loneliness, hope
Came together through embracing arms, hours of kisses
And that intimacy of touch?
Where was the joyous desire that left him trembling
When he had stood at her door, waiting,
And she, arriving, threw her arms around him
Holding him so close with her passion, her love,
That he closed his eyes in tears knowing, knowing, his dreams were there
Embodied in her flesh?
Where? Where? Where the promise promising so much that never was
Never now could be
Fulfilled.
Where?
But she was gone, taken by an accident of life
As he became taken, enfolded, by sorrow because of her loss
Until, broken, the life left him
To leave only the shell, only the physical shell
Longing for death.
What? What would, could, he do?
Only exist, ambling, alone, in some wood, on some hill,
Seeking no comfort and finding no comfort, uncaring of himself -
Except when the hills, the clouds, the Sun, the trees
Their life
Came unto him as he the bearded tramp waited
For death,
For then for a moment but only a moment he might be at peace
Amid the life that was their life.
DW Myatt