China Sketchbook by AL Crouch

Author:AL Crouch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-11T03:31:15+00:00

THAT WOMAN!

That woman! She can’t even read the lines,

Much less what lies between them. Every word

(Or shall we say the second one, or third?)

Of all my letters to her softly shines

With love; but still she writes me back and whines

The letters are too deep—or else absurd!

She hasn’t got the brains God gave a bird....

Why must my heart have her for its designs?

I miss her as man misses anything

That comes into his life, then disappears

(I wrote her that). A letter at Kunming

Came telling me she was provoked to tears.

She’s one I can’t convince and can’t deceive....

What does she want, my heart upon a sleeve?

TO HELL WITH HER !

To hell with her! I’ve had enough of this

Waiting for letters that don’t ever come.

I’ll write somebody else; I’ll give her some

Of her own medicine. Then she will miss

My letters when it’s all too late. The bliss

Once hers another one will cherish. Dumb—

That’s me. She thinks I’m underneath her thumb;

But I will show her whose big thumb it is.

Of course I’ve had four APO’s this week...

And moved six times. One of these factors might

Have some significance—which we’ll not seek;

But when at last her letters came tonight

(May true love strike me blind if I’ve dissembled),

My heart beat double-time, and both hands trembled.

THE LITTLE THOUGHTS OF YOU

Now that my loneliness is magnified

By cruel separation, and the days

Move through the corridors and silent ways

Of memory in one long empty tide,

The little thoughts of you somehow abide

In shining splendour through the darkest maze

Time puts between us; and their tiny rays

Are starlight on still waters deep and wide.

My heart does complicated calculations,

And multiples the distance by the time

That we have been apart; but all summations

Add up to missing you. It is a crime

To have an ocean separating us,

The little thoughts of you make such a fuss.

MONSOON

The land stirs with its everlasting rain,

The intermittent rain that wakes and sleeps

By turns, the rain that swims, the rain that seeps,

The rain that falls alike on hill and plain,

Then gathers up itself and falls again

(Drops calling unto drops, deeps unto deeps),

In the eternal tears that heaven weeps,

Remembering earth’s sadness and its pain.

Rain gathers rain, and from a tiny start

Soon roars its way into a surging flood;

Love’s Monsoon swells the current of my heart

With burning madness that consumes the blood.

Rain flows in search of sunshine and the ships;

Love sings its anthem to your eyes and lips.

YOUR LETTER

I’ve read your letter by the lantern’s light

A hundred times. Outside, a slow rain falls

Against the drumhead of the canvas walls

And roof; the tent door flutters as I write

This answer to your letter. Down the white

Sheet, line on line, the message slowly crawls,

Leaving its trail of ink that somehow stalls

And starts by turns while moving into sight.

Our mutual interchange of written words

Is everything . . . yet nothing. Marks on paper

Make music like so many mounted birds;

And warm the heart like flames from some dead taper.

Were we together—I am sure of this—

We’d punctuate each sentence with a kiss.

I MISS YOU

I miss you in so many, many ways;

I miss

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