Love is all there is: the rest is self-delusion

Ancient maple by Patricia Scarborough from her Off the Highway Project

Have we a minute to sit

you and I

beneath this

heavily laden maple

sheltered from the rain

chilly wind

or sun

We can speak of the thing

unspoiled before

we touched it

in that devil may care

manner we have

of wanting to possess

everything

Remembering

the war years

that brought us

closer

years of strife and

sacrifice and

and loyalty

burying the losses

What cowards we were

not to love!

What fools in thinking

we were above all that

mincing and mixing

of the inane with the serious

idiot sentimentalism!

We could do it all again

if not for ourselves

If not for self-delusion!

Oh I am off again

on that ancient subject

my will to resist

broken and dangling

from your pretty wrist

with a million charms

like dying stars

yet I would love you again

The other feelings

I have are all

mostly made of sand

a past that never was

a war that never ended

at the biological level

a cell that can

no longer divide