Pianissimo

Unknown to me as she may be,
this does not mean I love her blindly.
Dimly I perceive her face,
pale gardenia in rain, in England still,
before she left, possessed of gifts
that brought no gain -
Cassandra's curse, to see what will be,
helpless to forfend or change.

Behind her in the shadows stands
another woman, older, strained,
and reaching back beyond them both
a shadowy genetic chain of women
gazing back at me,
and through me to infinity -
all my mother's female ancestors
whose blood runs in my veins.

In loving me, you would encounter
all the women I have been,
strangers I have never known,
yet whom in some sense I've become.

In loving you, who would I meet -
whose heritage is yours to claim?
Do the forest, steppe or ocean
speak in tongues you used to know?

Does your city smell of snow,
does the blizzard's fury chill you?
Does the north wind in the pines
remind you of old journey-lines?
   
Who are those men who gaze
across your shoulders at the firmament,
as if at wonders they divined or dreamt?

Banishing from our embrace
those wistful forebears we encode,
you could love me very simply,
as a minstrel loves a rose,
whose mystery unfolds for him
in less time than it takes the moon
to rise, the heavens to rotate,
and nightingales to inundate
rose-gardens with their serenade…
in less time than it takes a star
to flare and luminesce and fade…