You That I Loved

By A. F. Moritz

You that I loved all my life long,

you are not the one.

You that I followed, my line or path or way,

that I followed singing, and you

earth and air of the world the way went through,

and you who stood around it so it could be

the way, you forests and cities,

you deer and opossums struck by the lonely hunter

and left decaying, you paralyzed obese ones

who sat on a falling porch in a deep green holler

and observed me, your bald dog barking,

as I stumbled past in a hurry along my line,

you are not the one. But you

are the one, you that I loved all my life long,

you I still love so in my dying mind

I grasp me loving you when we are gone.

You are the one, you path or way or line

that winds beside the house where she and I live on,

still longing though long gone

for the health of all forests and cities,

and one day to visit them,

one day be rich and free enough to go and see

the restricted wonders of the earth.

And you are the one, old ladies fated from birth

to ugliness, obesity and dearth,

who sat beside my path

one day as I flashed by. And you are the one,

all tumble-down shacks in disregarded hills

and animals the car on the road kills

and leaves stinking in the sun.

Copyright Credit: A. F. Moritz, “You That I Loved,” from Poetry (January 2005). Copyright © 2005 by A. F. Moritz.

Source: Poetry (January 2005)