not tragic

LXV

Not quite heat- or rain-scrim, this heavy
blankness, thinning now, presides with a mauve-
tinted wipe-around grey. Noon, yet no distance
to any horizon. The Malverns gone in haze.
I would not, formerly,
have so described bereavement. Land
of Unlikeness a similitude, certitude
moves to dissolution. Still, an answer:
misprised, misplaced love,
our routine, is not tragic;
misadventure at worst. And my self-styled
lament must cover for us both.
Something here to know time by, in all
conscience. In all conscience we
shall lie down together. Dear one, be told
you chose impenetrable absence; I became
commonplace fantasy’s
life-sentenced ghost. Allow
our one tolerable scena its two minds.
Abruptly the sun’s out, striking a new
cleave; skidding the ridge-grass, down steep hangers;
buddleia in dark bloom; a wayward covey
of cabbage-whites this instant balanced
and prinking; the light itself aromatic.

Geoffrey Hill, The Orchards of Syon