Summer Villanelle, for Greg, 1990

If only, my love, I would forgive you,
We'd grow heady then heavy in evening mist
Then wake and see it's fallen as morning dew.

We'd see the burning flowers that are new
With spikey bursts of deepest amethyst
If only, my love, I would forgive you.

But being true to what I know is true
I fill these nights with swollen tears instead
Then wake and see them fall as morning dew.

How much better to see the richest blue
Of hydrangeas spreading as full as the moon
If only, my love, I would forgive you.

And better, my dear, to lie beside you
And smell the ancent smells of ocean's mist
Then wake and see it's fallen as morning dew.

If only we were garden plants that grew
And grew together on a summer trellis -
If only, my love, I would forgive you -
We'd wake and see the morning dew.

em