For Cecilia McVie
The Turn
Till music shall untune the sky,
and the Pauline trumpets begin to play,
absolving all time between you and me,
you are twenty-one years away;
and I think of you disconcertedly
on every St. Cecilia’s Day.
The Counter-Turn
Your shoulder by mine in the Student Union
at U.B.C.; me on about Kant;
you saddened and bound for a separate communion,
me enraptured by my own rant,
skinning my intellectual onion
because I knew nothing of tears or want.
The Stand
From that semblance of Heavenly harmony
we tumbled into disconcertion,
and I doubt if either of us could say
whether it was your or my desertion.
All of that’s twenty-one years away,
but I think of it on St. Cecilia’s Day.
The Turn
You called me an old boot and kicked my leg
at the bus stop one night, affectionately.
I didn’t take it well. I had questions to beg
about time and distance and you and me,
and who would make promises and who would renege,
and how to handle it, intellectually.
The Counter-Turn
I went to “Time Bandits” when we broke it off,
then I think I went home and drank all night.
I still do that, sometimes, sorting wheat from chaff
with a tossing brain, though I’m not too bright
about weights and measures. But I’m good for a laugh,
these days. I’ve learned how to keep it light.
The Stand
When Jubal struck the corded shell,
and when others like me learned how to play,
that’s when the trouble started. I tell
that joke to myself disconsolately
from the distance of twenty-one years away
on every St. Cecilia’s Day.
The Turn
Would you like me now? You liked me then,
when there was little enough to like.
I’ve learned business and management of men,
and how to handle the give and take
of dealing with limited time and horizon.
On weekends, I take to the trails and hike.
The Counter-Turn
It surprises me how often I think of you;
once a month, maybe, over twenty-one years.
That’s a lot of remembering to do.
I’ve learned a little about wants and tears,
which makes me less interesting. But I still wish I knew
how to hear the music of the spheres.
The Stand
But music shall untune the sky
long before I’ve learned to play
this corded shell concertedly
for you, there, twenty-one years away;
to say with due simplicity
that I miss you on St. Cecilia’s Day.
