Cross Roads

THE WRITING

     Sometimes a mist of sunlight across a stranger's hair,
        Sometimes the vague expression upon a stranger's
           face,
        Can make me feel your presence—can fill a lonely
           place
     With dreams of life half realized.  Faint music
           through the air
     Can make me hear your foot-fall, again, upon the
           stair—
        Sometimes a dancer moving with quite unconscious
           grace,
        Can make my pulse beat faster; and for a breathless
           space
     Can make me turn, expecting to find you standing
           there!

     You have not gone!  The passing of every empty
           day
        Has only brought you nearer.  Those things that
           were a part
     Of all we planned together are bits of you that stay,
        To bruise my soul as sharply as any flame-tipped
           dart.
     Ah, time may hold its healing—but years that pass
           away
        Cannot erase the writing you traced upon my
           heart!