DELAY by ELIZABETH JENNINGS

I am too long away from home.
These sudden ends of time and space
Are uncanny, and make me afraid.
The bronze bushes, thickening
Under a haze of yellow leaves,
Are not beautiful to me,
Nor the empty rooms, nor what the river sees
Dimly in the fog. It is my own
Absent self I mourn. The precious windows of my
Mind I left behind are darkened now;
How many others like me will go forth
On the roads, become separated,
And return to the city of their birth
Not knowing what has changed? We will be strangers
To each other, forgetting names and faces.
Is this what I have feared?
The time will be short, and the reckoning sweet,
When those that cling to time and place are lost.
Then we will find ourselves, our true selves
In some way or other, and will mourn the cost
Only of delay, of the long delay.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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