First Love (Dorcey)
First Love, by Mary Dorcey (1950-)
You were tall and beautiful.
You wore your long brown hair
wound about your head,
your neck stood clear and full
as the stem of a vase.
You held my hand in yours
and we walked slowly, talking
of small familiar happenings
and of the lost secrets of
your childhood. It seems it was
Always autumn then.
The amber trees shook. We laughed
in a wind that cracked the leaves
from black boughs and set them scuffling
about our feet, for me to trample still
and kick in orange clouds
about your face. We would climb dizzy
to the cliff’s edge and stare down
at a green and purple sea, the
Wind howling in our ears, as it
tore the breath from white cheeked waves.
You steadied me against
the wheeling screech of gulls, and i
loved to think that but for your strength
i would tumble to the rocks below
to the fated death, your stories made me
dream of. I don’t remember
that i looked in your eyes or that we
ever asked an open question. Our thoughts
Passed through our blood, it seemed,
and the slightest pressure of our hands
decided all issues wordlessly.
We watched in silence by the shore
the cold spray against our skin,
in mutual need of the water’s fierce,
inhuman company, that gave promise
of some future, timeless refuge from
all the fixed anxieties of our world.
As we made for home
We faced into the wind, my thighs
were grazed by its icy teeth, you
gathered your coat about me and i
hurried our steps towards home, fire
and the comfort of your sweet, strong tea.
We moved bound in step.
You sang me songs of Ireland’s sorrows
and of proud women, loved and lost.
I knew then, they set for me
a brilliant stage of characters, who
Even now, can seem more real
than my most intimate friends.
We walked together, hand in hand.
You were tall and beautiful,
you wore your long brown hair wound
about your head, your neck stood
clear and full as the stem of a vase.
I was young — you were my mother
and it seems, it was always
autumn then.