So, so long ago, and so far away, when Time was just a line that you fed me, when you wanted to stay,
we'd talk as soft as chalk, till morning came, as pale as a pearl:
No time! No, no time! Now, I have got all the time in the world.
Say, honey, did you belong to me? Tell me, honey, was your heart at rest when, darlin, all the mourning doves were howling us a song of love's godawful lawlessness? Say, honey, did you belong to me? Tell me, darlin, did I pass your test? I lay, as still as death, until the dawn, whereupon I wrested from that godawful lawlessness.
I roam around the tidy grounds of my dappled sanatorium. Coatless, I sit amongst the moles, adrift, and I dote upon my pinesap gum. And the light, through the pines, in brassy tines, lays over me, dim as rum and thick as molasses. And so time passes. And so, my heart, tomorrow comes.
I feel you, leaning, out back with the crickets, loyal heart marking the soon-ness, darkness: tonight, still, the mourning doves will summon us their song of love's neverdoneing lawlessness
while, over and over-- rear up! stand down! lay round!-- trying to sound-out, or guess the reasons, I sleep like a soldier, without rest. But there is no treason, where there is only lawlessness.
In the last week of the last year I was aware, I took a blind shot, across the creek, at the black bear, when he roused me in the night, and left me cowering with my light, calling out Who is there? Who's there? Who is there?
I watched you sleep, repeating my prayer. (Give love a little shove and it becomes terror.) Now I am calling, in a sadness beyond anger and beyond fear, Who is there? Who's there? Who is there?
I glare and nod, like the character, God, bearing down upon the houses and lawns. I knew a little bit, but, darling, you were it, and, darling, now it is long gone. Sweetheart, in your clean, bright start-- back there, behind a hill, and a dell, and a state line or two-- I'll be thinking of you. Yes, I'll be thinking, and be wishing you well. We land, I stand, But I wait for the sound of the bell. I have to catch a cab, and my bags are at the carousel. And then--Lord, just then-- time alone will only tell.