coming into your room i spoke your name,

paused in the doorway, but no answer came.

sun through the window slanted dusty down

on bookshelves patternd crimson, gold and brown,

and framed the roses, with their august air

of heart and heaven, in a burning square,

creeping to light your scarf that lay beside

my opened letter, pens, a spanish guide.

so sharply then i felt our summer there,

reproach, a bubble broken, left despair;

it seemd no sense that frases could offend,

no reason valid for a scribble and;

if you’d but come, i could have made it plain,

there , in the silence; but i stayed in vain.

time’s tower bells outside repeating four,

their empty epilogue, i closed the door.

john lehmann