After That One Night
I hold you tight because
I never held you up.
– Rilke
What if we met and the meadow stayed –
our arms didn’t surround,
didn’t encircle,
didn’t enscythe,
never enwreathed,
never enshrined,
left the green
that came to be around us
standing not ending,
growing not gone?
Do all forms close? close
in, wall out? Is there embrace
that leaves the open in,
does not hide the face?
-- Lloyd Haft