John Frederick Nims - Parting: 1940

Not knowing in what season this again
Not knowing when again the arms outyearning
Nor the flung smile in eyes not knowing when

Not sure beyond all doubt of full return
Not sure of time now nor the film’s reversal
This all done opposite, the waif regathered

Like our lost parents in the blinded song
We bag in hand with wandering steps and slow
Through suburbs take our solitary way

Not that all clouds are garrisoned and stung
Not that horizons loom with coppered legions
Not that the year is dark with weird condition

All who parted in all days looked back
Saw the white face, the waving. And saw the sea
Not knowing in what season this again

For well they knew, the parters in all evenings
Druid and Roman and the rocked Phoenician:
The blood flows one imposed way, and no other

John Frederick Nims

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/parting-1940/