I sometimes think that I could be
alone:
Really alone, with neither God nor friends.
The people near me then might well be stone:
Just faces on a frieze that never ends.
And I would travel in my mind towards death,
A world within a world sealed like a tomb.
My thoughts would be as silent as my breath,
And, like my breath, expire at my doom.
Such thoughts would make me shudder, were not you
A world where I may enter and find rest.
A rock gives way within, and I walk through
To be in laughing eyes a welcome guest.
Thank God I have you, friend, that I might stay
And be as I could be no other way.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.