Parousia

Love of my life, you
Are lost and I am
Young again.

A few years pass.
The air fills
With girlish music;
In the front yard
The apple tree is
Studded with blossoms.

I try to win you back,
That is the point
Of the writing.
But you are gone forever,
As in Russian novels, saying
A few words I don't remember-

How lush the world is,
How full of things that don't belong to me-

I watch the blossoms shatter,
No longer pink,
But old, old, a yellowish white-
The petals seem
To float on the bright grass,
Fluttering slightly.

What a nothing you were,
To be changed so quickly
Into an image, an odor-
You are everywhere, source
Of wisdom and anguish.

--Louise Gluck