The end was quick and bitter Slow and sweet was the time between us, slow and sweet were the nights when my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love of your body which came between them.

And when I entered you it seemed then that great happiness could be measured with the precision of sharp pain. Quick and bitter.

Slow and sweet were the nights. Now is bitter and grinding as sand - “Lets be sensible” and similar curses.

And as we stray further from love we multiply words, words and sentences so long and orderly. Had we remained together we could have become a silence

Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time's eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers - our neglect Has not had much effect.

Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it stands, so little overgrown, Walking that way tonight would not seem strange, And still would be followed. A little longer, And time would be the stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run From you to me; To watch that world come up like a cold sun, Rewarding others, is my liberty. Not to prevent it is my will's fulfillment. Willing it, my ailment.

After having loved we lie close together and at the same time with distance between us like two sailing ships that enjoy so intensely their own lines in the dark water they divide that their hulls are almost splitting from sheer delight while racing, out in the blue under sails which the night wind fills with flowerscented air and moonlight

• without one of them ever trying to outsail the other and without the distance between them lessening or growing at all.

But there are other nights, where we drift like two brightly illuminated luxury liners lying side by side with the engines shut off, under a strange constellation and without a single passenger on board: On each deck a violin orchestra is playing in honor of the luminous waves. And the sea is full of old tired ships which we have sunk in our attempt to reach each other.