i am here to ask you : can love alone
make this work, like the silent, tenacious
spreading of emerald moss, like the greening
of a grey heart?

i'm not sure if what i heard was you
calling my name,    because
i was so busy calling yours--
as if calling is possessing
and each time i breathed your name
it would bring you closer

and my mouthing of your name  really
seemed to say, why are you never clearly mine?
why have we met so late?
why did you suddenly decide
to appear in my irresolute heart?

in the overlapping of love and departure,
in the drowsiness of dream and waking,
an error of falling into someone else's heart
becomes a double error, yours and mine.
is this 'forever'?
is this the possessive pronoun 'ours'?

is it existentialism, the tao?
chang tzu? afternoon tea? an offer of protection?
a couple of borrowed verses?  a decision to come
and not to come  that then becomes forever loneliness?
a language that can exceed each other's love?

the last love poem
like a last leaf falling at summer's end
is a lifelong memory
of your restraint
and tenderness