36

To a Sort of Tin Drummer

The distance between us that was only miles

drives suddenly wide:

to lightyears

between youth’s blind and necessary arrogance

and the aware soul.

It is not indifference that stops my outcry

but the deadness of unstretchable words

before a fact like lightyears.

My impersonal protest cannot fly loud enough

to save you, if your evasion of love and loss

becomes habit; as it will.

You are dear as morning on an early daffodil

And upon the solar wind I hear already

your young heart rattle

in a death of dawn....