Time We Never (A) Poem by jim hogg

Another time, another place
An unexpected face to face
Emotions primed, the evening warm,
some kind of beauty holding on

The shadows of a pub porch light
on lavish youth and surging tide
Her very name, her breath, her sigh
I ran but never told her why

(chorus)
You ask how much, how deep, how long
It was no ordinary storm
and life felt like it must explode
in waves that washed away the shore
but here it's just the wind and me
some aging faces and the sea

And now this heart's in quarantine
I'm hunting hours in floods of years
to stretch them out forever in
this busted cage I locked us in

For now it's much too late to shed
the spans of time we never spent
I said goodbye on some back road
as if I could just let her go

(chorus)
You ask how much, how deep, how long
It was no ordinary storm
and life felt like it must explode
in waves that washed away the shore
but now it's just these memories
and aging faces in the breeze

But we're not tamed or framed within
those moistened lips, that ancient ship
for all around us not a trace
just rusting leaves and shrinking space

The Old Mill House closed long ago
the spot we parked on, overgrown
Yon little stream flows just the same
past where the wheel once milled the grain

03 04 2020