Listening To Myself

see myself staggering through deep snow

lugging blocks of wood yesterday

an old man

almost falling from bodily weakness

- look down on myself from above

then front and both sides

white hair - wrinkled face and hands

it's really not very surprising

that love spoken by my voice

should be when I am listening

ridiculous

yet there it is

a foolish old man with brain on fire

stumbling through the snow

- the loss of love

that comes to mean more

than the love itself

and how explain that?

- a still pool in the forest

that has ceased to reflect anything

except the past

- remains a sort of half-love

that is akin to kindness

and I am angry remembering

remembering the song of flesh

to flesh and bone to bone

the loss is better

Beyond Remembering - The collected poems of Al Purdy.