This is an Adrienne Rich classic, an untitled short piece from her "Twenty-One Love Poems". I love the last five lines. Credit to my student Annie, who reminded me of it this week.
Since We're Not Young
Since we're not young, weeks have to do time
for years of missing each other. Yet only this odd warp
in time tells me we're not young.
Did I ever walk the morning streets at twenty,
my limbs streaming with a purer joy?
did I lean from any window over the city
listening for the future
as I listened here with nerves tuned for your ring?
And you, you move toward me with the same tempo.
Your eyes are everlasting, the green spark
of the blue-eyed grass of early summer,
the green-blue wild cress washed by the spring
At twenty, yes: we thought we'd live forever.
At forty-five, I want to know even our limits.
I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,
and somehow, each of us will help the other live,
and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.
That's very fine.
I'm going to have to stop reading your blog at work because that made me cry, and at work that's embarrassing, even if it's the good kind of crying.
Posted by: tr1c14 | October 28, 2005 at 09:39 AM
Hi, listen, I tried to read your post, but there's a huge banner in front of my screen and I can't take it off! I already closed the window and opened it again and it won't work.
Posted by: cialis online | March 31, 2011 at 08:16 AM