54. autumn leaves
autumn leaves
and I drive back
down a leafy backroad lane
& I saw a woman
alone
picking blackberries
in the rain,
hood up,
& I felt a pang of longing,
of affinity,
to her aloneness,
of when I was her –
for though married
many happy years now,
sometimes I feel
a breath of something lost,
– a loneliness so palpable
you could nearly touch it –
and yet,
a loss, nevertheless,
a passing
of something that,
at the time,
was hardly bearable.
so why should I feel this spare kinship
to aloneness now ?
aligned with something
wanting
but unfulfilled.