So this was where he stood, Damaris West (March 2026)

 

So this was where he stood

So this was where he stood, this where he sat,
my piano felt his touch, my books his gaze;
that painting had his comment, this his praise,
he trod my garden and he stroked my cat.
No thing has value, now, except in that
he saw or did not see it in those days
which have, themselves, dissolved into the haze
of Past, unlike the feelings they begat.
They say, to comfort lovers left alone,
“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never
to have loved at all.” I am not sure.
Do ostriches miss flight, not having flown?
Deprived, would they not mourn the loss for ever?
He showed me Paradise, and locked the door!