Though we must leave this place,
We"ve trapped forever
In the trembling air
The last sweet phantom kiss.
5.
I know you"ll come when the cherries
Are ripe;
But it is still November
And I must wait
For the green fruit to blush
At your approach.
And meanwhile the tree is visited
By robber bands, masked mynas
And yellow birds with beaks like daggers,
Determined not to leave one cherry
Whole for lovers.
But still I wait, hoping one day
You"ll come to stain your lips
With cherry-juice, and climb my tree;
Bright G.o.ddess in dark green temple,
Thrusting your tongue at me.
6.
Slender waisted, bright as a song,
Dark as the whistling-thrush at dawn,
Swift as the running days of November,
Lost like a dream too sweet to remember.
It Isn"t Time That"s Pa.s.sing
Remember the long ago when we lay together
In a pain of tenderness and counted
Our dreams: long summer afternoons
When the whistling-thrush released
A deep sweet secret on the trembling air;
Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows,
Black rose in the long ago summer,