Such A Poem As This

There is work - the overtime - long walks under Sun, stars
To keep me distracted
For there is then no hours-long dwelling on your absence:
But this music undid such willful cunning plans:

You were there, then, as that Lute sounded,
Here, so real in memory, I touched our dream:
Warm, sensuous, as when that day I held your hand, felt your body
And empathy, sorrow, memory, made you cry.
I loved you then in that moment with a strength which surprised me
And had to fight to keep
That truth, my tears, from bursting forth:
Such love a torrent sweeping my calm of years
Away.

This week will become the month of loss,
This month a toil endured
As when the weary soil, drought-kept,
Waits, waiting, to bring forth flowering joy from seeds,
Like memory, sown from tears that are earth's rain,
My pain.

I know - and because I know the you
The years of sadness, doubt, self-loathing, hid and hides away,
I love the love that has no words I know:
Such love that is only the touch of you, the smile of you, the need of you, the scent of you,
The longing to be with you as if my love might redeem
The sorrows which made you hide
Still hiding a hope, within.

So much to say before you travel to stay a month away
With he who is your choice:
So much to miss I am, will be, lost
Needing now to run the miles to your house
Bearing such a poem as this.
This is all I have -
No house, car, money, prospects.
Only a love, a dream
Seen when I kissed your tears before you rested your head
On my shoulder that one night of belonging
When we knew, felt, touched, remembered, the essence.

But - three decades of love, thwarted - I am no longer naive enough to believe
You will be mine
And so I shall not, cannot, will not - must not - call upon you bearing 
Such a poem as this.

DW Myatt