Learning Absences

Being alone is also to be learnt
Long time or short time.
Walking the length of the house, shutting
The doors and the windows
No longer calling casually over one's shoulder.
Returning to find no trace
Of the other, companionable living -
Bread smell, the stove still warm, Clothes on the line like messages,
Or messages written and left on the kitchen table:
"We need to keep watering the cumquat."
Or, "I have paid the milkman."
At night, at this season, lingering at the window
Not being certain where to find Halley's Comet,
And looking a long time at the darkening sky.

Rosemary Dobson

and interpreted by the very talented dinah. . .