The Mayfly Hatch Poem by Barry Van Asten

Indifferent to change - I'm electric,
You're electric too, I said,
Oscillating and reflecting.
And by these fruits we suffer,
Yet neither of us more than the other.

And I yearned for all this in my youth:
A space among divine flesh, and summers;
A device to calm the sorrowful breast
Gripped by the neutrality of woman and universe.

Still, I hoped for better things to come:
Things said and not said,
Things done and not done.
But behind the north wind - Avalon
Still draws the line of her descent
To clamber and fall with collosal fear again.

Dawn, swans and aeroplanes...
I awoke to your Saturday morning cough
And found it impossible to face myself.
I tried to recapture love in semi-solids,
But when the hour came, I was Golem,
And not some clean-shaven Adonis
I could never be. And so

Remembering the old ones in words and ways
I found myself in her circumfrence of skin.
Hooked like a lead ball about her heart:
A weight to weigh her emotions with.
To navigate the nucleus, and begin
Observing the cycles of motion and rest:
A universe in a chemical system
Turned by moon tactics over centuries.

But still I hoped for better things:
For this thing between us to unfold;
For this thing between us to evolve.
Yet we retreated into a world of old bones,
Into the cold, grey tombs of the minster,
Afraid of TV's and telephones -
Gripped by the intensity of man and world.

And I hide epileptic secrets, I said,
Like pathway gates locked shut.
But as past masters of the broken heart,
We will always be scum devouring scum.