Waterfall

I do not ask for youth, nor for delay in the rising of time's irreversible river that takes the jewelled arc of the waterfall in which I glimpse, minute by glinting minute, all that I have and all I am always losing as sunlight lights each drop fast, fast falling. I do not dream that you, young again, might come to me darkly in love's green darkness where the dust of the bracken spices the air moss, crushed, gives out an astringent sweetness and water holds our reflections motionless, as if for ever. It is enough now to come into a room and find the kindness we have for each other -- calling it love -- in eyes that are shrewd but trustful still, face chastened by years of careful judgement; to sit in the afternoons in mild conversation, without nostalgia. But when you leave me, with your jauntiness sinewed by resolution more than strength -- suddenly then I love you with a quick intensity, remembering that water, however luminous and grand, falls fast and only once to the dark pool below.