Found You Lost

 

I knew you for a long time, but don't know you anymore.
Something happened in the middle;
you're too depressed to be beautiful again -
someone's left you with sad smiles.

When it's booming with tourists, nothing
is more dead than the colosseum,
and nothing is as dead as Rome and words,
so I stayed quiet. Watching. I saw
you'd discovered that the stars, sun and moon are burlesqued
by poets and artists. It's a cheap varnish
on a striking elm, but the tree isn't seeable yet.

Sometimes it's impossible to see right.
You look too hard and take everything apart
until you're left with a mound of worthless fibres.
You can't understand the heart; we're too smart.

Know that sophistication kills passion
and know it soon. These little towns don't drag you down,
places don't depress people; It's consensual.
Hurry. The winters are cold and the summer's windy
and there's not enough time to curse the weather.

(Forgive my incongruous addressing,
only the free
can target names. Only the free
and the careless.)