Classic Poem

The evening has passed and the moon will soon vanish
We are prepared to bid another night farewell
Witnessing how happiness can leave us
You did not come, lost instead with other dreams
You left empty your chair
Engaging our dull circle
In clamorous questionings about
A visitor who never came.

I didn't know your disappearing all these years
Would leave your shadow in every sense of every word
And all dreams in every corner, every curve
I didn't know how you could overpower these people here
A hundred guests lost
In a moment of desire
As it ebbs and flows in yearning for
A visitor who never came.

If you came, if we sat with all the others
As conversation gains its power among friends
Would you just become another guest with evening at an end
Both of us, our eyes turning, still in search?
We'd ask the empty seats about
Those we missed at meetings past
Crying out that among them was
A visitor who never came.

And if you came one day (it's better that you don't)
The fragrance of that flowering world would leave my memory
The wings of wonder would be clipped and my songs sad
My hands would hold the fragments of my innocent hope.
I love you as a dream
If you come as flesh and bone
I still would dream of the impossible
The visitor who never came.