A boy came up the street and there was a girl.
“Hello,” they said in passing, then didn’t pass.
They began to imagine. They imagined all night
and woke imagining what the other imagined.
Later they woke with no need to imagine.
They were together. They kept waking together.
Once they woke a daughter who got up
and went looking for something without looking back.
But they had one another. Then one of them died.
It makes no difference which. Either. The other
tried to imagine dying, and couldn’t really,
but died later, maybe to find out,
though probably not. Not everything that happens
is a learning experience. Maybe nothing is.
(John Anthony Ciardi)
More Poetry from John Anthony Ciardi:
John Anthony Ciardi Poems based on Topics: Death & Dying, Imagination & Visualization, Daughters, Experience, Education, Learning- Abundance (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
- On Looking East To The Sea With A Sunset Behind Me (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
- The Pilot In The Jungle (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
- A Magus (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
- An Apartment With A View (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)
- White Heron (John Anthony Ciardi Poems)