Night Of April 17th Poem by Hal Caufield

After a rough and tortured week,
Without seeing you for so long,
I walked the streets of Port Jefferson
Late into the night, as I so often do.
I pondered a CD I had recently burned for you.
My heart rose and fell in
The swirling seas of my torment.
And so for comfort, I stole some blessed words
From the songs I have want to share with you.
There must be a higher love,
The kind found in the infinite blueness of your eyes;
The door to a thousand churches;
The resolution to all my futile searches;
I want to be that complete in your eyes.

With down cast eyes, I took a drag
Of a bummed unfiltered Camel.
Which I knew you would not wish for me to smoke.
At that moment, an angel sent by you, stopped me.
“You know you should not smoke, ” she said.
So I put out my one and only cigarette,
And prayed that you would come to the zoo with me,
To enjoy the dazzling beauty of one spring day.
With that pleasant thought in mind,
I shuffled off the cold of a lonely night,
Walking to drive off in my car,
Knowing full well that which ever way I go
I would come back to the place you are.
Then and only then, a smile finally crossed my face.