The Breton Night (1994)

Loose Leaves – Looking Back

 

Tim Chamberlain - On the Steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London (1995)

Some people say that nostalgia is a disease, but I disagree. I’m sure a lot of poets would feel the same. There is certainly a danger in falling prey to nostalgia, especially if one feels the past is preferable to the present. Personally, I don’t feel that way. There were undoubtedly discontents in the past, just the same as there are discontents now in the present – but we tend to forget this. As the poet, Thom Gunn, put it: “(Aware, gently, of what the past / becomes, golden in ruin.)”*, we tend to burnish our memories and our ‘what might have beens.’ – Suffice to say, the following poem was written a long time ago.

 

 

 

THE BRETON NIGHT (1994)

 

I walk these silent streets:

 

Still, the snow on the banks

of the rivers in Berlin remain.

 

The pages of poetry drift continually

beneath the surface.

Though you do not see.

 

You asked me to dance with you

beneath the bright light of the

midnight moon.

 

A dance before we said goodbye,

and then you turned away.

 

With every thought that follows now.

 

I clasp each memory I have of you,

and treasure it deep inside, as though it were

a last and final embrace.

 

And each time I turn, I see you.

 

You come to me, through this

your Breton Night.

 

Smiling – I see. Smiling – at me.

 

My heart meditates each moment,

unchanging.

 

My thoughts of only you, and the

cherished dream.

 

Letters are not enough, no stamps

to bear: Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité.

 

I look into my sky and see the same,

a silvered moon of memory,

set high in this – your Breton Night.

 

Counting the days, until you return.

 

 

1994.                  

 

 

Man Ray - 'Mother of Pearl Face and Ebony Mask', or 'Kiki with African Mask' (1926)

*from: “A Drive to Los Alamos.” (Thom Gunn, ‘The Passages of Joy’, 1982).

Leaf  297