Photo by novi raj. Creative Commons.
There's a thin filament line
Taut, silver and fine.
At one end is me, today,
And the other stretches back in time.
I know the one on the other end,
That girl I was at fifteen,
At sixteen, at twenty,
That girl always feeling so full. And so empty.
If I tug on the cord I can sense her resist.
But she is the one who pulls the line,
Baiting me and winding me in,
Reeling me back to her time.
An age of damp woods and rainfall
Of secret scents and low guitars
Where the boys stretch up like branches
And she loves, oh she devours them all.
She will not grow, she will not forget,
She will not die.
And sometimes her wound is so dark and wide
That I cannot, cannot hide.
She pulls the moss sack over my head,
And she presses his sweet lips to mine,
And I remember my thirst for his kisses,
His water, his salt, his wine.
Her high song rings in the valleys,
So loud she cannot hear my warning.
She does not want to hear my warning:
She will lose him when her mother dies.
And from that earthy hillside grave,
The woods will darken,
And the songs will fade.
And all that he was will be unmade.
And all that she was will be unmade.