10/1/18 – Absence

Visited the place where we last met.

Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;There was no sign that anything had endedAnd nothing to instruct me to forget.

The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,Singing an ecstasy I could not share,Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in thesePleasures there could not be a pain to bearOr any discord shake the level breeze.

It was because the place was just the sameThat made your absence seem a savage force,For under all the gentleness there cameAn earthquake tremor: Fountain, birds and grassWere shaken by my thinking of your name.

Absence by Elizabeth Jennings