Are You There? Poem by gershon hepner

Are You There?


Lovers wish to make it known
love’s a favor they would grant
to the one they love alone,
but adopt different tone
when they see things really aren’t
what they should be, and atone.
That’s why we are all alone,
and when told we really aren’t,
we’re prepared to pick a bone,
arguing and always prone
to believe our lover can’t
recognize the love we’ve shown.

Inspired by WH Auden’s “Are You There? ”

Each lover has some theory of his own
About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:

Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone
That really stirs the senses, when awake,
Appears a simulacrum of his own.

Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;
He cannot join his image in the lake
So long as he assumes he is alone.

The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,
Are always up to mischief, though, and take
The universe for granted as their own.

The elderly, like Proust, are always prone
To think of love as a subjective fake;
The more they love, the more they feel alone.

Whatever view we hold, it must be shown
Why every lover has a wish to make
Some kind of otherness his own:
Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.