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Sestina

I gazed out of my window for an hour today
In blank-eyed expectation of your coming;
And all I saw was leaves
Falling from the trees;
And I cursed the deadly unforgiving minute
That makes such a mockery of my longing for you.

In the back of my mind there's a memory of you
Fading and distorting with the passing minute:
Some half-glimpsed glorious vision through the trees
And flashes of hair like autumn leaves
And a joyous gasp to signify your coming.
No, I do not think I will see you today.

And dare I hope you thought of me today ?
That turning aside you recalled for a minute
The park in summer, plucking leaves
From my hair as we laughed beneath the trees ?
And shall I tomorrow be thinking of you,
And write you a letter to ask you when you're coming ?

It seems I have waited an age for your coming:
Thinking of how it would be; today
I tried to fill the space; each empty minute
With something else - watching the leaves
Of these books turning on their own. These fossilised trees
That rustle like dead skin. My fingers long for you.

Why do I bother waiting for you ?
You're changeable as the trees
I see outside the window losing their leaves;
And the age of this place reduces life to a minute
Stone in the puzzle of existence. Today
I see only an age of desolation coming;

An age of joylessness, of emptiness coming;
A skeleton world shorn of flowers, of trees,
Where even the evergreen cannot keep its leaves;
None left to care about the passing minute:
Yesterday I dreamt it. I wanted today
To chase away the vision with the sight of you.

1994

Written at Cambridge as part of a creative writing course, looking at different poetic forms.