The Lovers OR Quality Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today’s poem is a favourite of mine and appeared in several poetry magazines/anthologies before I included it in my first major collection; it was written in 1991 after a conversation over a garden hedge with an elderly man whose wife had died the previous year. He talked about the spirituality of love and togetherness in such a way that I was full of admiration and close to tears.

THE LOVERS or QUALITY TIME

Scarce we talked of love,

scarce we talked at all

I would scan the paper

while you got the tea

or prune my roses

while you watched me

out of the corner of one eye

at your herbaceous border

busy with a trowel

Scarce we talked of love,

scarce we talked at all 

I would fix whatever

while you made us a cuppa,

and when I’d finished

we would sip comfortably

in our favourite places

glancing up now and then to

read each other’s faces

Scarce we talked of love,

scarce we talked at all 

Now I prattle away

in a misty rain,

bring you roses where you lie

in a patch of cemetery,

birds for company,

wondering why, oh why?

Again and again

Scarce we talked of love

scarce we talked at all

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001

[Note: this poem was first published as 'The Lovers' in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; rev. ed. in e-format in preparation.]