Wednesday, April 12, 2017

I understand about courtly love



The students at my university went home for Easter after classes today. We'll be off for five days.
At this point in the semester, it seems like the end of the semester.  Spring is in full force; it's warm and everything is alive in green and pink.

Yesterday I had an email from someone I have not heard from ever on email , because I knew him before there was email.  He said he came across my name by chance. 

A flood of memories rushed back, aided by the Spring.

I had a major infatuation with this fellow, a professor of mine who was only six or seven years older than me.  And married.   Because I believed in marriage and believed in being true to his wife,
I never pursued the relationship. It was not physical, but it was very romantic.

He is now in his seventies, still married, the father of one and grandfather of four.  I wonder what his life has been like.  It sounds very settled and happy.

I was in love many times after him.  But his email sparked something I had long forgotten.

I went back to my journal from those days fifty years ago, which I don' t think I have read in at least forty five years.   Here's one of the poems I found:

The Last Last Day

Now I leave
the place of ghosts.
Now I leave a ghost
to walk with yours.
What a love they have,
my ghost and yours,
walking in spring always,
flowers to pick.
Walking to the old building
always the white ghost-car
there.
Always the whistle on the steps, the shadow of a sway.
Now on the last last day
I leave my ghost behind.
She is laughing,
butterflies are laughing
in the wide green field.
she walks with yours.



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