Marilyn Adair (Audio Poem)

Where were you when I went out to find you?

I looked..I called, but you would never answer.
You were elusive as a shadow when the light is turned out
and I am left to trace my way, by memory, to bed.

I tried to remember your face,
but I can recall only a smile or your brown-black eyes,
the color of a charred, burned-out house--
no unity can be reconstructed--
a dimple, a cheek, your hair, your laughter;
almost you are brought together,
but then the parts are repelled and refuse assimilation.

You are darkness--
sometimes everywhere, sometimes nowhere--
here when I peer inside.

I tried to remember your voice,
its lilt, its music, its note and slant;
I remember only your words and these are too few.

All your words are infused with my voice,
the one speaking to me when I think or dream or remember or imagine.

You told me once to look at a candle's flame
flickering, bending, twirling over a pool of molten wax.
You told me it looked like a skater gliding over ice;

I saw her twirl and jump and slide.
I see her now: I remember her. . . Remember the candle--red.
I remember how dark the room was with only the candle lighting it:

But you elude me, and your voice.