Rosemary and Time

The thick foliage of my garden
Makes way for sullen weeds.
Time has allowed the greenery
To pass.
That’s where we used to sit together,
Among the herbs.
You used to tell me
How I smelled of beauty
And earth.
You told me my lips
Were like the roses
That flower among the rosemary,
As though we were in an old movie.
And we laughed
At how dumb we sounded,
And how your friends would laugh at you.
Then I’d invite you in
For some lemonade.
I’d pick some herbs,
And walk through door
All covered in chipping white paint,
And we’d feel like we were everything.
I’d serve you cold drinks,
And make you hot meals,
And we’d talk and laugh until it hurt.

But the rosemary and time have passed.
You where drafted,
And we drifted apart.
After years
Of sitting alone among the dying herbs,
I grew tired
Of waiting for the war to end.
I met a boy
Who was kind, and sweet.
We danced and slept together,
But I always saw your face.
You came home,
And I stopped seeing him at once,
But things were not the same.
Your face was weathered,
And you couldn’t walk.
You couldn’t step into my kitchen
For lemonade,
Or dance among the flowers,
Or sit among the herbs.
I stopped picking sage
To cook your dinner,
And I think I stopped loving you.
It wasn’t because you were crippled;
I could live with that.
It was that you stopped being you.
The things you’d seen,
And the things you’d lost,
Had changed you so well.
I didn’t like who you were.
So I gave you up,
But I’m still in love with the memory of you.
And now I’m old,
And covered with time,
And I smell of thyme,
And my wrinkles are deep in my features.
Here I am,
Sitting among the rosemary and time,
And remembering you,
And our lemonade,
And our love.