Love in a Cold Climate

No lasting memorial, she insisted,
and so, with no grave to visit,
at her expressed request, feel
I’m free-falling; adrift in a void,
midway between I and we.

‘Life would still go on without her’,
she said, and she was right. Everything
passes, given time; the hymns, sung...
the eulogy, recited – canapés eaten,
‘The Last Post’ done and dusted.

And so, I find myself brought here...
in the second twilight; the hour
when day melds with night,
by the Tuscan Olive we planted
that summer;

drank a toast to its fruitfulness,
when a falling leaf spiralled upward
and raindrops etched Rose-Rugosas
in our pink champagne.

Strange...I acquired no taste for olives;
she adored them, she said, but, never
will I know, if she really loved me.
A travesty, indeed, that in a climate
such as this, olives won’t ripen
on a tree.