Читать книгу Collected Love Poems - Brian Patten - Страница 6

When the face you swore never to forget

Can no longer be remembered,

When a list of regrets is torn up and thrown away

Then the hurt fades,

And you think you’ve grown strong.

You sit in bars and boast to yourself,

‘Never again will I be vulnerable.

It was an aberration to be so open,

A folly, never to be repeated.’

How absurd and fragile such promises.

Hidden from you, crouched

Among the longings you have suppressed

And the desires you imagine tamed,

A sweet pain waits in ambush.

And there will come a day when in a field

Heaven’s mouth gapes open,

And on a web the shadow

Of a marigold will smoulder.

Then without warning,

Without a shred of comfort,

Emotions you thought had been put aside

Will flare up within you and bleed you of reason.

The routines which comforted you,

And the habits in which you sought refuge

Will bend like sunlight under water,

And go astray.

Once again your body will become a banquet,

Falling heavenwards.

You will loll in spring’s sweet avalanche

Without the burden of memory,

And once again

Monstrous love will swallow you.