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“Exiles Between The Years”
(from a letter Samuel Beckett wrote to Desmond Egan)
by Lynn Cohen
The arboretum cuttings
of many autumns
have come and gone
along with all the “exiles between the years.”
While we were caught in a French Cafe
playing our own end game,
the pawns wept for Margaret
and I for you.
I became so tired of playing checkmate
with my own life.
So my mind wandered
to a peach-scented summer,
when trees shaded a redwood deck
dropping their fertile gifts
at my feet.
Fecund and full
I awaited your birth:
My first;
My only;
I remember this clearly,
though thirty years have passed,
and the black clone dogs
left long ago,
I still dream them
in my mother’s garden,
plundering cherry tomatoes
under sky-white whispers
when time held promises
it never delivered.