my love lies underground

with her face upturned to mine,

and her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss

that ended her life and mine.

i dance at the christmas party

under the mistletoe

along with a ripe, slack country lass

jostling to and fro.

the big, soft country lass,

like a loose sheaf of wheat

slipped through my arms on the threshing floor

at my feet.

the warm, soft country lass,

sweet as an armful of wheat

at threshing-time broken, was broken

for me, and ah, it was sweet!

now i am going home

fulfilled and alone,

i see the great orion standing

looking down.

he's the star of my first beloved

love-making.

the witness of all that bitter-sweet

heart-aching.

now he sees this as well,

this last commission.

nor do i get any look

of admonition.

he can add the reckoning up

i suppose, between now and then,

having walked himself in the thorny, difficult

ways of men.

he has done as i have done

no doubt:

remembered and forgotten

turn and about.

my love lies underground

with her face upturned to mine,

and her mouth unclosed in the last long kiss

that ended her life and mine.

she fares in the stark immortal

fields of death;

i in these goodly, frozen

fields beneath.

something in me remembers

and will not forget.

the stream of my life in the darkness

deathward set!

and something in me has forgotten,

has ceased to care.

desire comes up, and contentment

is debonair.

i, who am worn and careful,

how much do i care?

how is it i grin then, and chuckle

over despair?

grief, grief, i suppose and sufficient

grief makes us free

to be faithless and faithful together

as we have to be.