I'm going to read another couple of poems that, in a way,
catch on the same theme.
I have, I have three poems called "The Past."
The first one was in A Door in the Hive.
"Somewhere married and in love, we
walked through streets planted with linden trees.
There were ramparts, buttresses, ancient fragments bonded
with newer masonry that was old to the warmth of the day just
ending, stretched itself on the stones a golden dog.
People were strolling.
There were no cars to speak of, and we were only
passing through.
What chance imperative held us on course to work what train.
Nothing I can remember, no better city, quiet avenues,
lamps coming on, Sky still full of light.
I can't remember arriving nor leaving,
and even while we were there, it seems
we were somewhere else inattentive.
But the lindens were blossoming.
Their perfume, mysterious pianissimo,
filled the whole town.
Every few years, that remembrance briefly returns
as if a fragment of dream, but I know it was history,
a bit of my life, a bit of the life of Europe, the past.
We failed to linger as if the lindens only
spoke over this gulf of time."