by Louise Glück
Love of my life, you
Are lost and I am
Young again.
A few years pass.
The air fills
With girlish music;
In the front yard
The apple tree is
Studded with blossoms.
I try to win you back,
That is the point
Of the writing.
But you are gone forever,
As in Russian novels, saying
A few words I don’t remember–
How lush the world is,
How full of things that don’t belong to me–
I watch the blossoms shatter,
No longer pink,
But old, old, a yellowish white–
The petals seem
To float on the bright grass,
Fluttering slightly.
What a nothing you were,
To be changed so quickly
Into an image, an odor–
You are everywhere, source
Of wisdom and anguish.
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