Longing

    The sunlight prints it mark
upon the naked retina to stay
    when you have turned your head –
it fades but slowly.  When you think it's left
you need but blink – it's not yet gone away.

    He said he was in love –
he liked her hair, her slender shape, her name,
    he loved her  voice
but never thought he'd loathe the way she lived:
her sweet excitement would soon feel too tame.

    Their bond was not too awful.  
Bound by will, they bore their homespun net
    with equanimity,
they worked together uneventfully
and didn't even know they'd never met.

    She only thought it strange
that he could smoke for hours in meditation
    just watching girls go by –
but as he never smiled at them, or called,
it seemed a fairly harmless occupation.

    She never asked him,
and in turn he never could have told her why –
    how in the passing forms
unconsciously he tried to rediscover
the spark in her that once had caught his eye.