FROM GRIEVER'S CIRCUIT

REQUIEM

Only with you
do I hold the hour's peace
recalling our poems
in the rainy Italian graveyeard
bright with neverfailing
flows of flowers;
on the dry steps of the Bona's chapel
do I hear canticle birds
trade tunes with vesper bells
that clang out Catholic hymns
known to your youth;
do I watch replanters
water memories that slip past
formal oval portraits
to a grin reflected
in a glass of wine.

Only you said that time had come
to trade poetry for dinner,
just as my soft electric candles
begin to cheer
our damp twilight;
then I remembered
how I hate to leave any place,
and you reminded me
we will have our turn
when we won't have to leave.