Unrequited OR Where Angels Fear to Tread

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

Although I have not shared my life with anyone (for long) since my partner was killed in a road accident many years ago, that doesn’t mean  I’ve  never met anyone else for whom I’d have given just about anything to share life's ups and downs in the way only loving partners can. Life, though, often has other ideas ...

Whoever, wherever we are in the world, I suspect few of us are never visited by impossible dreams about someone of whom we had high hopes in the love stakes, but our feelings were not returned; there will be those, too, with whom we may once have been  ecstatically intimate and thought this was the 'real thing'  but who lived (and loved) only for the moment …

Various socio-cultural-religious taboos (not least concerning same sex couples) have, of course, prevented love, even friendships from flowering in the past, and still do, so it is good to see that growing numbers among the younger generation, from all walks of life, have minds of their own enough to depart from the more restrictive conventions, dogma and prejudices that certain ‘betters’ would impose upon them who really don’t know better at all.

Whatever, it has been my personal experience, more often than not, that where there's a will, there's a way, and you can bet your life the human spirit will find it ...

This poem is a villanelle.

UNREQUITED or WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

My eyes begging sleep,

stay open for you;

heart, starting to weep

Thoughts I cannot keep

from rushing through;

my eyes begging sleep

Words of love I’d heap

tenderly on you;

heart, starting to weep

Arms that would keep

you safe, loved too;

my eyes begging sleep

Desire, Child of a Deep

few can subdue;

heart, starting to weep

Come dreams, I’ll reap

a harvest rare and true;

my eyes begging sleep,

heart starting to weep

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2020

[Note This poem has been slightly revised - and alternative title added - from the original version that appears under the title 'Unrequited' in  A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; it also appears on my gay-interest poetry blog today].