COLLABORATIVE POETRY 7: RETURN MAIL 4 (AFTER LETTER TO LOVE*)

You never say So long/ or Au revoir, only Next time will be sweeter. ---From "A Letter to Love", Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa



RETURN MAIL (AFTER LETTER TO LOVE)

Fancy hearing from you after some time.
I have gone back to that wayside inn more
times than I would care to remember:
and, like you, I would wonder how a day
would be like without you calling out before
you leave: A la prochaine! And sweeter!
Never goodbye. Never Au revoir. Nunca.

But next time, it will be the tryst of trysts.
We will quaff our wine from overflowing cups,
we will laugh at reflections of our faces
in the ponds we throw wishing pebbles in;
we will wish for the hours to last longer,
for the glances to linger. We will stay longer.

We will wish we had met when there was
still time, and we were much younger,
and braver, and mad with a world that did
not need to have memories of a wayside inn.

—Albert B. Casuga
04-15-11

* The Prompt:  Return Mail (After a Letter to Love) is in response to Norfolk poet Luisa A. Igloria's post, Letter to Love,  in Dave Bonta's Via Negativa. As a collaborative poem, the poem above adds to the dimension of the original poem thereby expanding the nuances and contextual breadth of the poems read as one "birthing" the other.  Igloria has used this letter format to write quick poetic responses to Bonta's Morning Porch.
 

Via Negativa: 04-15-11 http://www.vianegativa.us/ and Morning Porch: http://www.morningporch.com/