Like Oceans, Never-Ending

Like a river, never resting,
thoughts of her flow in remembrance.
Like a picture-postcard mountain
whose perfection lies in distance.

Like a foal, a lamb, a baby,
one is callow, one is quiet,
waiting in the hope of shelter
whether out of fear or habit.

"With her cinnamon and cumin
she will season, she will sweeten"--
though when eyes shine blue and silver
something surely is uncertain.

(Yes, I saw in her reflection
as she stole across the water
how one longing last glance backwards
doomed Eurydice before her,

but I tarried by the lakeside
in the hour of her passing
for I knew the inland quarter
held no opiate as lasting.)

She, like oceans, never-ending,
with a wave stills my defiance
as the vision of a mountain
will effect its awe by silence.

(March 1990)