In My Last Past Life

In my last past life I had a nut brown wife,
a gray and white house looking over the sea,
a forest for love and a river for grief,

a lantern tor hope, for courage a knite,
a city for distance, lights spread on the sea.
In my last past life I had a brown wife

subtle and busy and contented and brief,
(she stood in the dusk silhouette with the sea)
a forest and love and a river, and grief

was a ghost hidden green in the leaves,
an echo off cliffs that bound back the sea.
In that life it would last, my past and my wife,

the wren in the garden, the moon on the root,
the day winds that flirted and teased at the sea,
the forest that loved and the river that grieved

the life that was garden and day wind and thief
(each sunrise and sundown the turn of the sea)
the life that I had, and my last brown wife,
a forest for love, a still river for grief.