I do not ask for youth, nor for delay <br />in the rising of time's irreversible river <br />that takes the jewelled arc of the waterfall <br />in which I glimpse, minute by glinting minute, <br />all that I have and all I am always losing <br />as sunlight lights each drop fast, fast falling. <br /> <br />I do not dream that you, young again, <br />might come to me darkly in love's green darkness <br />where the dust of the bracken spices the air <br />moss, crushed, gives out an astringent sweetness <br />and water holds our reflections <br />motionless, as if for ever. <br /> <br />It is enough now to come into a room <br />and find the kindness we have for each other <br />-- calling it love -- in eyes that are shrewd <br />but trustful still, face chastened by years <br />of careful judgement; to sit in the afternoons <br />in mild conversation, without nostalgia. <br /> <br />But when you leave me, with your jauntiness <br />sinewed by resolution more than strength <br />-- suddenly then I love you with a quick <br />intensity, remembering that water, <br />however luminous and grand, falls fast <br />and only once to the dark pool below.<br /><br />Lauris Dorothy Edmond<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/waterfall-8/
