Travel

Loving you, flesh to flesh, I often thought

Of travelling penniless to some mud throne

Where a master might instruct me how to plot

My life away from pain, to love alone

In the bruiseless embrace of stone and lake.

Lost in the fields of your hair I was never lost

Enough to lose a way I had to take;

Breathless beside your body I could not exhaust

The will that forbid me contract, vow,

Or promise, and often while you slept

I looked in awe beyond your beauty.

Now I know why many men have stopped and wept

Half-way between the loves they leave and seek,

And wondered if travel leads them anywhere --

Horizons keep the soft line of your cheek,

The windy sky's a locket for your hair.