Love's long Summer made my heart
Fruit heavy on the vine.
Sweet, swelling, skins under the sun
Held promissory notes of wine.
Within those blue-black lustr'd cups,
Hidden in the dappled green,
Dusky dreams were clustr'd, ripening,
Of a harvest we had never seen;
But dreamed of, as the ticking pulse
Of the seasons turned the earth;
While our hearts became entwined,
Both longing for rebirth.
You should have stayed, and drunk the wine
That was ready to be pressed;
But the sweetness was lost, and then denied,
And still, nothing was confessed.
The abandoned fruit, those delicious hopes,
Fell to mould and waste, a most ignoble rot;
Rich pickings for the circling crows,
Bloodwine congealing to a carrion clot.
I still walk between the trampled rows,
And wonder, sadly, at the waste;
The saying's true-- to keep the bottle from
Your lips, no drop should you ever taste.
But I did, and with each years vintage,
I will think of you, with every glass I drink.
A silent toast, that none shall hear,
But you. Just listen for the clink.
