These Simple Things Poem by Barry Van Asten

Because she keeps me young and foolish
And does not ask for explanations,
We go, towards the one world that we know
With lips poised and pressed upon secrets,
Unstoppable in our own absorption.
But in all her craft - dull tenderness

Is consumed by this unchanging passion
That blots the world out with a stare
As we turn love's corpse inside out,
Only to worship at it's feet once more.
And unable to focus on what we have,
It is only the simple things in which we care.

But still I keep a little something near
Which I warm between fingers and thumbs,
Like some saintly relic or astral shrine
That looks back on our strange art that wove
Delights unfathomable to our love.

And with these simple things we feel
How this existence grinds us thin -
Love's minstrel without vocabulary,
That silent enemy in the veins again
Which overshadows what we have and
Transfigures what we can't sustain.

For something monstrous now has grown
To find it's strength with agile steps,
While somewhere, a couple, falling to bits,
Fall from inside - do you see?
Sighing and falling inside,
Were outside falling to bits.

And I want you in my world again
As I go thumping and shaping life.
I'll do what I'll do and go, I said,
If only these simple things would remain.
But dearest, we have said awful things,
And I will never leave you while there's
Still hope within.