Howard Firkin
My dear, ambiguous God/poet/ess,
I miss you, and I miss the words I’d find
you’d hidden in the hidden folds of mind.
I miss the way you loved me, more or less.
Your lesson learned: less lessens to its end.
I’m left without you, left without the sun
you give to someone else. I’m left without
the words to tell what’s left to talk about,
and who’d be here to hear it told? No one.
You don’t reply. A God is not a friend.
Your voice I still hear, all the old, sad songs
that once amused me. Now the words apply.
Immortals cannot love—no man belongs
with you—but I will love you as I die.
I miss you, and I miss the words I’d find
you’d hidden in the hidden folds of mind.
I miss the way you loved me, more or less.
Your lesson learned: less lessens to its end.
I’m left without you, left without the sun
you give to someone else. I’m left without
the words to tell what’s left to talk about,
and who’d be here to hear it told? No one.
You don’t reply. A God is not a friend.
Your voice I still hear, all the old, sad songs
that once amused me. Now the words apply.
Immortals cannot love—no man belongs
with you—but I will love you as I die.
