Author: Elizabeth Maynard

What can I say but this?
I saw you across the lawn
and again a hands-width away
I wanted so much to cross those divides
pull you close and familiar
like those who meet
each other daily with the knowing look

Up late and early
walking the house
turning circles into squares
to mark out the fields
to dredge, to plow
bury each little thing
and wait for the new life

I don't know what to tell you
Your life is so loud
there is no room for even
another loving word

When will you come back to yourself
this body you abandoned
that day he decided
he would always matter more
than anything you could ever say?

Swift turning days
each rise and set

I am rushing on
to the next worry

How many times will you betray yourself
with silence and the daily degradation 
of a life you do not love?

I surface from great depths
to this world, anxious
crushed by the bends
too steep a climb

December 12, 1936
You didn't want to be king
but stuttered through
bore the weight of empire
until it buried you

Maybe it is good to stand in the sun
some days, until you are uncomfortable
enough to want to duck and run
but shift those feet instead
learn what it is to live
in the light

To give all of yourself away
is lunacy and wisdom
the double-chambered heart