TEMPTATION OF A POET

The temptation is to go back,
To make tryst with the pale ghost
Of an earlier self, to summon
To the mind's hearth, as I would now,
You, Prytherch, there to renew
The lost poetry of our talk
Over the embers of that world
We built together; not built either,
But found lingering on the farm
As sun lingers about the corn
That in the stackyard makes its own light.

And if I yield and you come
As in the old days with nature's
Lore green on your tongue,
Your coat a sack, pinned at the corners
With the rain's drops, could the talk begin
Where it left off? Have I not been
Too long away? There is a flaw
In your first premise, or else the mind's
Acid sours the soft light
That charmed me.
                        Prytherch, I am undone;
The past calls with the cool smell
Of autumn leaves, but the mind draws
Me onward blind with the world's dust,
Seeking a spring that my heart fumbles.