Peaches Poem by r james sterzinger

Ode to Robert
(For Robert Frost and for Kay M.)

O, Robert
it is true
it is true then
that love doesn't come a second
time.

because
the same sun
you saw reflected in her eyes,
that ripens the peaches
on the trees...
rots them
none the less.

and nothing gold
really does stay
including one's sanity
but what stays
as long as steel
and slowly
too slowly rusts away
is the messy entanglements
we have weaved
when summer is gone
and the winter settles in tight
at the end of love
at the end...