It Isn’t Possible to Love and Part

Anniversary:

Nothing's changed except the view.
The tree grows down from a bird,
the strong grass pulls up the earth
to a hill. Wade here, my dear,
through green shallows of daisies.
I hear the voice talking that is dead
behind the voice that is talking now.
The shaping congregations
sail over in a barge of clouds
indifferent to us below.
The more they go they come again.
The clocks of the smoky town
strike a quiet grating sound.
Tomorrow will be the same.
Two sit on this hill and count,
two moving from the two that stayed. 

What happens to a flame blown out?
What perishes? Only the view,
never my magnified hand in yours 
whatever hurt and angers done.
I breathe in air the dead breathed out.
When first you inclined your face
to mine, my sweet ally came,
with your brown eyes purely wide.
My right hand on your left breast
I said, I have little to tell my dear.
For the pure bird, a pure cage.
Oh the silence that you lost
blind in the pandemonium
of the kiss and ruined was.
My dear, my dear, what perishes ?
I hear this voice in a voice to come. 

Dannie Abse.