revisiting the past

rummaging through my things, i found an old notebook (from the early 70's) with the very corny poems i wrote for a lost love . by "corny" i mean they're too much of a cliché. let me share it here then:

WHERE YOUR MEMORY DWELLS

a certain thing keeps bothering me
the flame of your love has gone
the warmth that once loomed around
was replaced by cold unkind.

the tears i occasionally shed
like water ceased your fire
the fears i always had
now in my life had stayed.

in simple verses i now write
the memories of a forgotten love
where once your memory dwells
in the silent home of my heart.

the smile i once saw in you
have taken me far below
to where you once confessed your feelings
when you said you loved me so.

in simple words you had me uttered
the words i always knew
but never in my life had i said
only when i met you.

the place where once we sat
before a dim candle light
where our eyes did really meet
and our hearts beat fast.

the park we (once) twice strolled
where different stories were told
where the rain once fell on us
and brought your arms around me close.

the church where rests your world
far away from my own
i had once aimed to see you there
but price was there and took control.

the prayer(s) you offered me
which only fools could realize
and which wisemen and i never believed
your kind of world and paradise.

these things i always knew
had known and will always know
and on the days ahead i will recall
that once i loved you so.

in simple verses i have now written
our love that you had forgotten
and in my heart i have kept your love
and your memory forever dwells, forever remains.

that's exactly how i wrote it, in small letters, no caps (channeling my inner e.e. cummings, maybe). and apparently i wrote it on september 2, 1972 at 10:30 p.m. i do not understand entirely what i meant in my poem - especially the fourth stanza - not to mention i think i broke all the rules for writing poems, structure-wise or whatever. but, oh, boy, i wrote poems then. and long ones, too! how i sustained it for that long is hard for me to fathom. now i can only manage a haiku or two, and i need prompts to do them.

i know at the time, i was so in love with this boy, Benjamin, and i can categorically say he, too, was deeply in love with me. he was the measuring stick for the next boyfriend, and the next, etc. (not that there were so many) and it always made me wonder, during quiet times and my mind drifts to that part of my young life, how it would have been had we belonged to the same religion, married and had a family.

and if there is such a thing as time travel, that is the one past i would gladly live again.