The Last Act of Love

Chris Ellery

November 19, 2022

for Tom Camfield

Young lovers bathe their bodies in the sea

and play. “What fun! What fun!” they say,  

“If only summer would last forever! 

“If only, if only it could always be summer!”

Remembering a summer fling of long ago, 

I see this well-tanned wished-for world, 

world of a single solstice, 

world without reaping or sowing; 

world without hillsides bursting into bright mosaics, 

without frosty dawns, marching bands, pumpkins,

no geese honking odes above the big-moon fields, 

no handholding walks in new wine weather; 

world without hearth fires, wassail and caroling, 

without snowfall, snowmen, snow angel visitations, 

no indolent winter nights of dreaming, two by two

entwined, cocooned in downy comfort; 

world with no ice melt, snow melt, no spring runoff 

swelling wild rivers, no robin’s eggs, no hatchlings, 

no tilling and planting, no plum blossoms, 

bluebonnets, dogwood, dewberry, cherry, peach.

Before you call the genie, think. 

Think, my children, before you wish. 

Life is a cycle of unpredictable weather,

a play of more than one brief act. 

The sun, so welcome to your bodies now, 

does not rise to burn your skin 

or the green lawn of your dream house 

on the set of one dusty season 

while autumn change keeps waiting in the wings

for Scorpius to end its endless soliloquy. 

It’s true, the first act of love, when lovers meet, 

is sweet, sweet. But what if the comedy 

ended there, stuck 

in the scene before your happily ever after?

If summer and your summer affair were destined 

to last forever, then whatever grows 

in this season of light and furious heat 

can never know the harvest.

Chris Ellery is a frequent contributor and ardent reader of TPA. His two most recent poetry collections are Elder Tree and Canticles of the Body.