You, Muse

What you depart from is not the way, the Tao, from Pound, altho as I recede from you the memory of you grows nearer. I would not be leaving you if it were you who grew more lovely as the train goes deeper into the darkening night. The train growls thru the deserts. Animals, caught between its jerking cars, cry out. You move me, I would say, I am transported by a memory of your smile. I would be afraid if this were more than a metaphor, altho I speak to it as if I loved it, and as if that were love.

3 June 1979