Only You Will Never Know

Some of you might have seen this before, but I wanted to post this again since some have not seen this, and it was one piece that really helped put a lot of my pain from long ago to rest.

I wrote this before I left for Australia the last time, but it is about what was left behind the first time I was in that country. A large part of my heart remains, no matter how many times I return and leave, and she will never know... but that's ok. On the other hand, I often wish she would read this, just so she would know the reasons she would never know.

'Only You Will Never Know

Are we happier now?

Our love the price I paid
In silence... In agony
Our love the cost of duty
To what? Home?

Am I stronger because?

Our joy was made incomplete
For reasons beyond the moment
Only now understood
But in the end?

Did we feel again?

Our hopes were reawakened
In the dreams of other days
Wondering... waiting
In the shadows of our memory.

Are you happier now?

Our love swept clean
In the fires of rebirth
Our life forgotten
Lost in the wake of time.

Would you care to know?

Who I am...
Is because of you.

I do not think you will ever know.

C.

Crucible of Memory

Sometimes when you see the future, for whatever reason, it can feel like a dark place, especially as you reach deeper into the twilight of your life. This poem, a slight revision of an older one of the same name, captures that to my mind, for when we have forgotten everything, all seems lost, the universe still remembers... and loves.

'Crucible of Memory'

Night falls harshly on our lives,
Memories of the sun warm upon our face.
So dim in this chilling landscape,
A darkening form languishing, haunted
By an image... so sweet
Yet long forgotten,
Words frozen in the crucible of time.

Future's days slip away in shadow,
Twilight remembering all we have known.
So far from fantastic hopes and dreams,
A gentle heart suffering, distraught
By a love... so incredible
Though fading into solace,
Words occluded in the fragments of time.

Tomorrow dawns tenderly within our soul,
The sun once again warm upon our face.
So amazing to sense what was lost,
A welcome reminder returning, fueled
By a memory... so true
No longer forgotten,
Words emerging beyond the edge of time.

C.