You Were There, and other poems - 7. Cavafy, forgive me

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Poem No. 18

Tanka:

Rain etched on the glass –

On one side of it, nature;

On this, my finger;

While the drops fall and I try

To let one feel real to me.

Poem No. 19

Too sad it is to think

that I’ll never see you again,

and sometimes music,

as a poet once sung,

cannot make up for tears.

So, boy in the Cardinals jacket,

moving along like grace-made man,

how sad it is to think

I simply didn’t ask

if you’re from my hometown.

But that I’ll never see you again

is too sad to think.

Poem No. 20

Cavafy, forgive me.

I wanted to read all about

The lives of those Greek-Egyptians

Who lived in life and stone

Through you to live in me.

I wanted to know all their secrets,

Their innumerable subtleties,

The ones that you wrote of so well –

The poets that make them live so well –

To all who have but souls

And a book of yours.

All of these I wanted,

Dear Cavafy, but I had to stop;

The time had too much life for me,

The time was all forgotten but for

The two men who stood near me.

They looked. They moved, a little,

Those two who know what to do,

And I, eavesdropping as if on history herself,

Listened as one asked the other his name;

Saw the smile one reflected in the other,

And knew.

You were there too,

My dear muse of nighttime things.

They, and you, and I also, looked,

And listened, and had our love re-born

By the wings of fleeting Eros.

So you see, dear master,

I wanted to read of lives lived twice,

And seconded better in the re-tell,

But there were our lives – there on the train –

And I knew,

You lived more in me

Than the three of us

In your books.

You Were There

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