FOR VENETIA AND BENJAMIN

Dear Venetia,

Why is it that each time he said good-bye,

Your searching eyes would ask, “Is this the last?”

He heard you with a smile and then a sigh;

He also craved like you the distant past

When he stood always ready to comply?

On any weekday, bright or overcast,

With every sudden, fanciful desire

Which your impassioned ways made quick as fire.?

?

Now you and he live continents apart,

But share the sad constraints of time and space.

Beware that when you let the yearnings start

By giving them a total pride of place,

They will not cease to stir your restless heart

And make of him a half-remembered face.

Just as the darkness sees the dawn arise,

So too the sun awaits the dusk, then dies.