how much I have avoided you out of fear I would never go that way

9 

        It’s not a loss of power 

that I’ve forgotten how much I’ve lost 

in love, yes, in my arms 

in going away 

 

in love waiting as the sun 

and waves flame to the rocks. 

                                    I’m sober 

and lying around. A tremor revels 

 

to take off all my clothes 

and amuse myself, while surrounding life 

levels all my feelings and thoughts. 

 

Have I forgotten how much I’ve lost, how much I have avoided 

you out of fear I would never go that way, because youth is filled 

with familiar symbols more common to memories of an awaked 

life. 

            Everything dies and decays. Even the highland disappears and 

escapes to the beyond. 

 

10 

                        I am getting past it. I’m not lost yet. 

                        But the violence and refuge cannot clean 

                        the greediness of a face forlorn. 

                        Behind you some kiss is still left. 

                O Give me beautiful things 

                        that I can carry back 

                        with me, back to where I play. 

 

                        O Host! Hold me! O unseen power. 

 

                Immersed, still floating, carried by waves over stones, stones 

of memory locked away from a mortal life. What keeps knocking 

at these stones of my memory? At any second I’ll see before me a 

form, real or apparition, who’ll guide me through what appears to 

be the most dangerous, but also the most beautiful terrain I have 

ever imagined. 

                And here I am… in the midst of the living. 

 

[Joseph Ceravolo {1934-1988} from 'Apollo in the Night', in Collected Poems]