Love of my Life – Part 15 – A poem

Love of my Life – Part 15 – A poem by P.K. Odendaal – August 2019

Here we go once again with the same old refrain

Of desire and pain which are all still the same
For a purpose so alaine as an old steam train
But the dream that she had made us both feel bad

As a chance which went by like an unheard sigh

The gist of the dream was to be my queen
For ever and ever in bonds which won't sever
But this dream was too late to consecrate
And must be a sign of our long lost prime

A love that is buried can be exhumed or parried
But a chance once defiled should never run wild
To return one day to tempt or to sway
But stay in its place with style and with grace.

What is gone is gone and cannot go on

To wreak havoc at day and lead us astray
A chance once lost should never aspire to anything higher
Than contempt or rejection in every direction
It suits us to make no further mistake
But to stand fast and firm should it one day return

Just when you think love is dead it is startled and gets out of bed

And just when you think it cannot be saved
it suddenly rears its head from the grave

You may seek it with hope like pieces of soap

You may threaten its life with a very sharp knife
You may dare it to leave by being naive
You may attack it with blame in a fit of past shame

But it always comes back like a railway track

And moves around at the speed of sound
In the end it is you who should see it through
as something which linger by pointing a finger

You shall sit sometimes, when the leaves are falling,

Alone with your heart, as I sit today,
And hear that voice from your dead past calling
Out of the graves that you hid away“
(last four lines by  Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

It was my intent that the first part should end

Not long before this in a moment of bliss
But life does not care if we do not forswear
But goes on and bite in the middle of night

What needs to be done is clear to each one

Walking this earth in grief or in mirth
So, little did we know that the outcome would be so
That the way of love is not spurned from above
It comes back at times to reveal all our crimes
Or it reminds us of things that forgiveness still brings

Roll back the years and swallow the tears

All is not lost in this life we have crossed
It might give us time to make it sublime
To forgive the mistake we both had to make
When we both knew we had said adieu
For no other reason than the end of that season

Making us forsake what was at stake

I with my gallantry to serve my country
She on her own to go it alone

We knew our separation would bring abdication

And nothing can last after so many years passed
As that is the fate every one must await
Who are many miles apart after such a short start