YOU AND ME
I
I plunged deep into the pool
And swam down and down
Looking for the green window
On the other side of which
You sat knitting comfortably
There awaiting me
Who bereft of goggles and glasses
Could only just make out
The patch of light the window was.
But there I swam, and slowly
Tapping on the glass, saw
From the murk and blur, a hand,
(Your hand I did presume)
Reach out and in return knock,
Knock, quickly then withdrawing
Back into the murk and blur.
But where were you? Where
That face I’d hoped to see
Smiling at me, and glad
To have our game played out?
I could not find you there
And the breath about to break in me
Desolate I drew my face
Up to the glass, seeking
You again, and you again
Came close, and just, but just,
Blurred and out of focus
I saw your face, but a face
Unfeatured, yours not you,
No smile nor frown, no love
Nor laughter in your eyes
No anger even, nothing
By which I know you now
But blank all blank.
No communion ours,
A few seconds more
I looked again for you,
But every sense was shut
Disordered or disrupted, no sight
Nor sound, nor touch of you,
And shocked how subject was
My self who sought you out
To that unthought of life
Desperate to survive in me,
Appalled by the urgent power
That opposed my being there,
Forced to leave you then
I reached upwards fast
For the air I had to have.
Breathing a little hard
I got out and came to you –
You met me with a smile,
Your needles went on clicking –
And I sat down disturbed
At having felt how much
Our being must depend upon
The simple ordering of sense
How little we can be together
If needs we have are not met;
Suddenly so glad, so glad
Of a world in which to live,
And simple speech such relief,
I said, all this in mind,
‘I could hardly see you there.’
You then looked up, and said
‘But I saw you, and clearly.
You looked lost, I thought.’
II
Clearly lost. Ten years on now
Those words strike through me:
For quite as true, never
Have I seen you clearly,
Never quite been able
To find what is sense in me
Ordered and composed in you
Who know you have not known
(And have I a self not sense?)
Ever my being all to you.
What self I am, of the poorest
Sought, deranged, disordered
And needy beyond all need,
Nothing now but that life
I never reckoned much a life
Desperate to survive in me,
No grace to go out quietly,
Demanding what it must not have,
And were it free to breathe
The infinite air of possibility,
Might not find, seeking still
A face, that constant face
Not often enough glimpsed in you,
A face whose magic could
Create a deep delight in me
Calm the longing I cannot own
And be the order of my days.
III
To say a late good-night
I walked this evening thus
Into our children’s room:
Too late, as I then found,
For they had gone to sleep
The lights left on, their sign
Of wanting still to see me;
And there as I looked down
Upon those sweet and sleeping faces
Their troubles all gone out of them,
Their struggles soothed in sleep,
They all at rest, and resting
In our love—our love assumed—
The clamour and the chaos of the day
No barrier now between us,
Suddenly I was breathing deeply
Breathing air fresh and good
Air that acted on my being,
My better being, and did assert
I must not drown, not go down,
Not give in nor go away:
Here it is I must pass my day.
For you and me, we both know
That we are the world they see
That one world, which taught
By us, they take on trust
As right, and good, and just,
Our two lives their one being,
Mother and fathering air
Around them everywhere
The living air they breathe
One life which if rent in two
They will long be conscious of
In all they do, their days and dreams
Troubled then in unknown ways,
Something always wrong, not ever
Something good, or quietly understood.
But what an act of grace
This world is, God’s
Gentle face, if we are loved
Or can love in it:
And for our children, we—
And I mean you and me—
We are the story they will unfold:
By the nature of our love now
They will come to know their world,
Finding the good, coping with
What is evil in it. So I say,
Troubled though I am, it is to you
I would find my way,
With you end my day,
Hoping that we both will find
What we both have in mind
That living you and me
We both long to be.
