What was I thinking?
If I was thinking at all,
Lacking commitment, no precious passion-metal
In this fifty-winters relationship today, nor, indeed,
For some months gone: only mere disdainful disinterest,
Denial: surely the most cowardly forms of betrayal.
No fire in the blood, no iron in the rod
Where love and faith once fitted, fuelled and fulfilled.
Another week’s dull grey rains gone
Under the honest, Bedlam song bridges;
Why was I waiting, pretending indifference?
And for what?
For the gallows shadow birds to find
Paradise-bell voices, describe a better perfection?
For the right cards, for a signal in smoke or stars?
What was I thinking?
