Remembering Marie A.

It was a day in that blue month September

Silent beneath the plum trees' slender shade

I held her there

My love, so pale and silent

As if she were a dream that must not fade

Above us in the shining summer heaven

There was a cloud my eyes dwelled long upon

It was quite white and very high above us

Then I looked up

And found that it had gone

And since that day, so many moons in silence

Have swum across the sky and gone below

The plum trees surely have been chopped for firewood

And if you ask, how does that love seem now

I must admit, I really can't remember

And yet I know what you are trying to say

But what her face was like, I know no longer

I only know I kissed it on that day

As for the kiss, I long ago forgot it

But for the cloud that floated in the sky

I know that still and shall forever know it

It was quite white and moved in very high

It may be that the plum trees still are blooming

That woman's seventh child may now be there

And yet that cloud had only bloomed for minutes

When I looked up