Love Poem: Last Walk
Paul James Avatar
Written by: Paul James

Last Walk

I shed, today, tomorrow’s tears. 
They flowed unseen within, 
yet tarnished still the golden 
final time together – not weeks, 
nor even days, but hours, 

the minutes pressing in tight embrace. 
Were it not for you, timid 
dweller on ends that must come, 
this would all have been so true: 

My heart full with hers on hills unbuttoned 
By rays of sun so ripe the light lies 
Heavy like fruit from the sky’s 
Boughless blue, or: 

Eleanor, our love is enchantment, 
This I say, and more, as we walk 
And talk with hands entwined, 
Limbed together from the heart, and: 

Sweet Eleanor, our hearts beat 
Together, we pulse soft protest 
Against the circumscription of clocks, 
Taking our time in these last hours, 

Singing, deep from within, songs 
unsung and unheard and never to be 
heard and sung again, each the brief flower 
Of each unique moment of our love, blossoming 
into the soul's albums of its own sounds. 

Yet every inch we covered together, I knew, 
and know – and this is the pain of it – lay in the 
unseen shadow of separation, and my hand gripped 
yours also in fear, my song an also too, as it sang 
strident against the coming silent nights, 
The future’s unlit boulevards. 

Did you feel it, gentle Eleanor? 
And take with you into that far-off land 
A memory tinged by my cowardice of heart? 

To love without fear or regret 
in view of life’s end, embossed with light; 
untouched by the darkness we fear.