Not time that parts us now?

What parted us then, even that,

had I understood then, finding

your home then couldn’t be mine?

In other summers we’d excursioned

far up that valley. From the coast

I’d followed the auxiliaries’ way

through the pass and down to those ramparts

on the adverse bank. This place

with its grass-grown halt, this crook

of the river, I hadn’t known.

And that to me was time past,

and this was time lost.

Yes, but that afternoon,

pea-green before the thunder,

when you took me into the garden,

that evening, old-gold, we watched

tower over the estuary,

if only as spectroscoped now

in memory do they reveal their nature,

if only now from the future

I was impatient for then

does that time appear as it was,

now I see too, not time—

time, which takes since from till-then,

and taking you away, brings me after—,

not time, no, but what’s between

my now and your nowhen.

Well, did those Roman miles

divide childhood from youth, or rather

join youth to childhood?

updated by @americymru: 11/28/17 04:29:46PM