A Blossomed Disappointment


There is nowhere specially to get to,
having lost, last night, the need
to carry on.
Now, midwinter, the sun chafes the sky
and a thousand promises
slender into emptiness.
Outside where the red japonica

grew and the wild birch
bore our names, there is an idleness
that has no name, no age
nor any sense of regret
that what has happened has happened.
Things have their own firm course:
the wild birds sing in frail

mornings, the city traffic stills
and starts as still and start
it does each day with places
to go and places to be, time
passing its ordinary way.
And what has happened has happened,
nothing as uncertain as dreams

or the misfortune of mistake
that can later be amended.
For us everything holy has gone,
the sound of our voices tainted
with the touch of separation
that marks us.
Our bodies have folded back

into themselves, strangers now,
unwelcome as strangers are
with nothing but disturbance raising
questions where silence ought to be.
There is nowhere specially to get to,
this midwinter morning, its skies greyed
and its moments hollowed following

the night that saw us shrill and twist,
then shrink, astonished, to a blossomed
disappointment.

John Cornwall

If you've any comments on his poems, John Cornwall will be glad to hear from you.


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