Day 208

Day’s last sunlight 
filtered through oaks, Monterey Pine.
I sit watching the dogs 
chase one another through tall grasses
in my garden.  I have spent the afternoon
with friends, remembering better times:  Mariolina and I
in Highgate Wood on the long spring evenings, 
talking about poetry, VietNam,
the forms of resistance.  Love is a form of resistance,
we said, delight is a form of resistance.  Chocolate,
dark coffee, tall deciduous trees
coming into leaf as the children raced each other
down the pathways.  If she were alive today.  If we
could walk with each other today. 
If I could talk to her now
about Gaza.  If we could weep together,
rage together. If we could emerge now, 
a braccio a braccio, out of the wood
onto Muswell Hill Road, amid loud buses,
people walking home from work, from the shops —
if we could talk now about forms of resistance,
children playing in the ruined streets, the laughter
of children —