A Change of Mind

I never wrote of love, I never once
Wrote of the things I ever wished to keep.
Never of all I chose to leave undiluted,
Not once among those things I pressed so carefully
The flattened petals among the brittle leaves
Of heavy books, did I count those bouquets
Whose heady perfumes brought to mind
Autumns long past, or longing that was so scarce
I could not afford to adulterate or lose it.

I never wrote of love, I never
Had enough to have enough to give away
Never enough of anybody's heart
To commit to paper, to lose a part,
To leave it behind to gather cobwebs.
They would grow their musty stories
Weave in glistening bands of brittle steel
Wind tighter, tighter still until they snap
And hang in mocking streamers, gather dust.

I never wrote of sunlight as it filters
Through gulmohar leaves, or when it mingles
with the ripples in the stillness
To lap at the concrete of its containment.
I never wrote then, nor when I lay
Enveloped in the true, the rare, the fleeting.
What torrent this that sweeps away the habits
Of twenty years?