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Sunday night in the house.
The blinds drawn, the phone dead.
The sound of the kettle, the rain.
Supper: cheese, celery, bread.
For company, old letters
In the same disjointed script.
Old love wells up again,
All that I thought had slipped
Through the sieve of long absence
Is here with me again:
The long stone walls, the green
Hillsides renewed with rain.
The way you would lick your finger
And touch your forehead, the way
You hummed a phrase from the flute
Sonatas, or turned to say,
"Larches--the only conifers
That honestly blend with Wales."
I walk with you again
Along these settled trails.
It seems I started this poem
So many years ago
I cannt follow its ending
And must begin anew.
Blame, some bitterness,
I recall there were these.
Yet what survives is Bach
And a few blackberries
Something of the "falling starlight",
In the phrase of Wang Wei,
Falls on my shadowed self.
I thank you that today
His words are open to me.
How much you have inspired
You cannot know. The end
Left much to be desired.
"There is a comfort in
The strength of love." I quote
Another favourite
You vouchsafed me. Please note
The lack of hope or faith:
Neither is justified.
I have closed out the night.
The random rain outside
Rejuvenates the parched
Foothills along the Bay.
Anaesthetised by years
I think of you today
Not with impassionedness
So much as half a smile
To see the weathered past
Still worth my present while.
Vikram Seth
Read poems about / on: rain, today, poem, strength, faith, house, smile, green, hope, night, thanks, weather
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