Where we aged

I let you go  
to stand amongst beechs,  
bone-gold phalanx, shades of you,  
  
again, joy rests
in the warbling line,  
a tumbled mat  
 
against fieldrows —  
the communion  
of companionship,  
  
this separation — still burning  
gives new colour to snowdrops,
ones that find spaces in me

as if an afterthought:  
each individual  
quietly collapsing,  
 
white spires  
mirages of Summer,  
swing beneath fine forearms.  
 
I return  
to that lover’s end,  
those thick vines of unknowing  
 
spaced out,  
bury my thoughts in the mole mounds:  
'tween bracket fungi, by the stamen

in too early daffodils,
brazen and heavy
as if the shade of left thigh —

hue of a bruise,    
it stings this sculptured earth,
whistles a tune of Springtime.

I return to that forgotten path,  
alone, to clod and mossen ground —    
as if it would restore something in me,

each fur-innard mast,
a shell left by the ghost
of a season that we shared.