There was a time
     when you used to confide in me
     shared the innermost stirring of your heart;
     when you used to feel safe in me,
     entrusted what others couldn't hear out loud.

There was a time
     when we were close enough,
     nourished a friendship pure and free;
     when nothing outside bothered,
     heard the fellowship of the soul.

There was a time
     when I partook of your other-world,
     entered and stayed almost at will,
     where I could let all things go,
     relished in the sound of the heart.

Could we but retain this friendship
     though we've progressed on to other fields?
     or is it that common ground never to ti be trod,
     that state of being never to be revisited?

     ¿Does Intimacy have to supersede,
                                                          derail,
                                                           dethrone
¿ or has this transformation merely 
                                  deepened our Friendship??

So that It appears otherly,
                              having put on a new face,
                       and taken on new rules,
        now seeing with new eyes?

       Perhaps . . . .
                     and yet,
                        . . . . there was a time . . .

.
27 VI '97