Have you ever, my true love,
aske’d yourself where do your longings lie
and if you do at all belong,
to whom or to what purpose will you spend your life?
With forty years on your brow
and wrinkles ’round your now flush’ed cheeks,
you will still be all that you’re now
and yet your eyes, that every man now seeks,
will see and be look’ed at, proud
no longer of the spell they cast.
Your charm irresistible is in the landscape vast,
is in your soul now still veil’ed by a childlike shroud,
disclose it with the way you spend your future’s past:
your inner beauty is what disconnects you from the crowd.
Belong thee, therefore, to your own ’nblemished self
And if my love is real, belong thee to myself.
II
Consider me thy friend in need,
on whom your life will well be spent,
you, to who my care belongs in every deed,
insufferable longing if you yourself absent.
I would, but will not die for your depart,
because what use, if cease I and desist,
would have you for the stoppage of my heart
and mind’s travail in order to release
the conflict of identities into pursuit of art?
For in your falsehood you’re are truer still
than most are in sincerity,
your intuition, even of me, deeper—and so is your will
although deprived of constancy,
to rescue yourself and me from loneliness ’nd misery.
And thus I need your love much more than you do mine,
Together we shall navigate along the shore,
I am your compass — and you’re mine.
III
If we confront each other every day,
Bereft of mercy and with cruelty possesse’d,
atrocious accusations fling we may,
jealous of every move, yet unconfess’d;
my eyes don’t hear, what my love should see,
you miscomprehend my deepest fears,
seeing abandonment, where I to thee
belong so true that nothing even nears:
to shake awareness of the dear you.
Is it not this ambivalent proximity,
the intimacy lovers due,
that between us metamorphoses pity
into true love?
Inside grow we stronger must,
lest fire of o’r love will turn into dust.
IV
When you are fay away and I alone,
with others when you are, happy perchance,
how miserable am I, lonesome, to the distraction prone.
I would but call on you—and with you dance!
Do I still keep a stiffer upper lip,
My throat with tears constricted,
I long for your reoccurrence, or to take the trip,
To see, embrace you and to kiss—as predicted:
A woman old and far in village Auber,
Told you and me, how we shall one day part
and then together come again. T’is now, her
prophecy fulfilled, for she is smart.
Nothing will part us now ’xcept for pick and shovel,
Together we shall stay — and let the world grovel.
V
And so you go through life misread, misunderstood,
As I, again ’n again disproved ’n disconfirmed,
browbeaten by the so-called love, and good
to others, my own heart to ashes burnt,
helpless perhaps to comprehend
that what we seek is deeply buried,
your being different—is close at hand.
Surrender, loosen control of your emotions varied,
begin to feel, ’vry pore a wound ’nd sore,
that you like me, are real and unique and carried
away with your desires. Redeem identity, forlorn
utterly in rage and furies—and in the yearnings buried.
Find not in others, seek in your own very self
the music of blazing passions—enjoying themselves.
VI
T’is only me to stand below, cradle your fall!
Disintegrate, do fall apart and do despair,
experiencing horror, crave, be hungry, call
out for me to hold you, to embrace and care!
Fair be my child, I’ll nourish you and mother
your need for understanding and support,
help you express your sentiments and rather
than open seas to sail—please come to port.
Sort out your feelings even in fists and guts and sex,
And separate pristineness from the counterfeit.
Embellish not, but rather relish and do not vex
in your descent: to make your soul to your body fit.
For there is nobody ’except me so well to understand,
respect your inner beauty—and your errors to amend.
