a love that in itself was enough for the largest longing

Not in marble palaces, 

not in months, no, not in ciphers, 

never touching ground:

in weightless, fragile worlds

we have lived together.

Time was beaten out,

but hardly by minutes:

one minute was a hundred years,

one life, one love.

Roofs sheltered us,

less than roofs, clouds;

less than clouds, heavens;

even less, air, nothing.

Crossing oceans

formed out of twenty years,

ten years yours and ten mine,

we arrived at the golden

beads of a necklace, 

clear islands, deserted,

without flowers, without bodies;

a harbor, so tiny,

made of glass, for a love

that in itself was enough

for the largest longing,

and we asked neither ships

nor time for help. 

Opening

enormous tunnels

in grains of sand,

we discovered the mines

of flames and of chance.

And everything

hanging from that thread

that held up ... what?

That's why our life

doesn't appear to be lived:

slippery, evasive,

it left behind neither wakes

nor footprints. If you want

to remember it, don't look 

where you always look for traces

and recollections.

Don't look at your soul,

your shadow or your lips.

Look carefully into the palm

of your hand, it's empty.

 

[James Wright {1927-1980} 'Not in Marble Palaces', from Above the River]