For C. - Richard Wilbur

[Larry Robinson]

For C.

After the clash of elevator gates 
And the long sinking, she emerges where, 
A slight thing in the morning’s crosstown glare, 
She looks up toward the window where he waits, 
Then in a fleeting taxi joins the rest 
Of the huge traffic bound forever west. 

On such grand scale do lovers say good-bye— 
Even this other pair whose high romance 
Had only the duration of a dance, 
And who, now taking leave with stricken eye, 
See each in each a whole new life forgone. 
For them, above the darkling clubhouse lawn, 

Bright Perseids flash and crumble; while for these 
Who part now on the dock, weighed down by grief 
And baggage, yet with something like relief, 
It takes three thousand miles of knitting seas 
To cancel out their crossing, and unmake 
The amorous rough and tumble of their wake. 

We are denied, my love, their fine tristesse 
And bittersweet regrets, and cannot share 
The frequent vistas of their large despair, 
Where love and all are swept to nothingness; 
Still, there’s a certain scope in that long love 
Which constant spirits are the keepers of, 

And which, though taken to be tame and staid, 
Is a wild sostenuto of the heart, 
A passion joined to courtesy and art 
Which has the quality of something made, 
Like a good fiddle, like the rose’s scent, 
Like a rose window or the firmament.
	- Richard Wilbur