To Each Their Own

In these we lived and loved;
white-walled rooms – views
across the valley – the Neckar,
snaking, sparkling; red-houses –
apartments, and beyond, the same
binding, winding river, meandered
to the sea, past hilltop homesteads
and the Schloss with its backdrop
of fifty symphonies of green.

And then, those places we didn’t
stay long – an afternoon, a day...
a week, but they lodge in my mind;
Jungfraujoch – white-capped peaks
cocked a snoot at spring, where,
walking with the kids through a field
after rain we breathed its fragrance
with the air; edelweiss – white thyme;
to return – a rite of passage.

Elsewhere, there are landscapes
lost – the hills of Provence;
a rambling mill with rooms –
where, each afternoon that July,
I talked, ate, swam with those
passed on now, and can never
go back – stand upon the terrace –
giddy with a sense of déjà vu.

And this, here, now – running
to greet you the minute the sun
appears from a fretwork of clouds....
as a pair of comma butterflies cavort
amidst a custard-cupped acacia...no more
than I can make this moment mine
will it ever come again.