THE SANYASIN'S WIFE SPEAKS TO THE POET MENDICANT
 

Yes he left some time ago, days, months ago,
Light-years ago? Yes.
Yes only to return as the wind-will takes him
And you will wait out this or come another day?
Time: the season slips its ageing shine
Windspin, dustdrift, rich frail leafmold
Through one's fingers,yes

Yes.

I grow older.

Plainer.

Wood-boned.

Time lathes me,hones me to his bent, pares down
The half-smiles, winning ways, curved gestures,
Lashes locked with dew.

I save wastes. And I lift weights
Of dripping water, pans, breads and dung for lip.
Working, I work. idle-empty, cross my hands, yes.

Dreams slipped my mouth since he first took me.

And instead

Vision shall call it vision came. And left,
A passing guest. And it may come again,
That fine stretch, that muscular yearning beyond sense,
Yet possible. Just a while.

An everlasting sky: the kind of sight that burns
Until it leaves quite bare
And dies in its own burning.

I am stripped of all I know.

Yes, waiting for the wind to turn
The cheel to halt on its swerve
The traveller to ground.

Seed and bone, I know them.

Then why 
When all is said and done
When the stranger came with laughing open mouth
From his land of foreign rounded vowels and pearl-deep seas
A land where long-legged beasts run fleeting
From the hunter, in lean grace,
Why when this shapely boy, child ran his courses

Did I turn blind and halt within the moment's spans?

And why this:
Knowing the flower was to be had
For the taking, did I

Turn back,
shifting windspin
dustdrift
shine of day through open hands

Turn back
To dark and flickering shrine?
To absence?
And to waiting?

You ask me still why this? 
Yes?