I shall not come home again

I Shall Not Come Home Again
(reflections on a college reunion)

Too much of loveliness enfolds the ground
I walked in youth, again in age,
and I shall soon lie down beneath it
as my spirit wafts above its art
in clear salute to mind's eternal joy.

Too much, I stand upon the edge of a regret
I do not wish to re-explore,
though I did not succomb.
Old flowers would sigh with me,
and speak of gravamen
that memory could not restore to light,
of crusted wounds I had ignored for years,
then strange in their emergence
would leave their ghostly shouting in my ears.

Yet I had smiled politely as I watched
the curious melange of student mirth
among the pretense of a mellowed age
which walked beside them
for that shred of while last weekend...
and that inside a host of smiles
that flashed around in vain denial
of a fiercer truth.

The time was beautiful
inside that frail transparent shell
of grace that comes with blessed rarity,
and I departed with a heart and mind
in dialogue upon dualities
that never should appear, but drum
upon the tympanum of my perspective
on a world I caused to change
two generations past, and now impart
a flavor in diminuendo, a seasoning
refreshed, more newly wise
and in finality, more spacious in its love.
~