Regret

The words we did not say on that first chilled evening in October
I hold clenched in me still,
Like a gambler holding too tightly to a ticket, waiting for the race to end,
Afraid to lose
Afraid, too, to risk or win

Afraid that the fates would be unkind, I declined courage
And have now only the feebleness of a tighter grip to keep regret at bay
And all the things I wished to say—
All the things which were waiting in that space, like a fire waiting to find breath
(Like a sinner in search of grace
Like night waiting for the day)—
Sit within me, still:
Words to become worlds, stillborn and inert instead

The seasons, strangely, did not stop for me
My faltering did not bend time's knee,
Nor stop the stream from racing to the sea
All things kept flowing, and still make their way,
Just as years race on to the end of days

But the moment still buzzes in my mind
The tragedy of one dear thing left incomplete
Makes regret feel as death to me

To go back and risk it!
To return and release every thought, like fish, and to watch them swim away
To spread them like seeds, scattered on an April day

But I can't go back and send words out upon the wind
Just as we can't go back or home again

Perhaps, could I somehow return to pull at the seam
All would have pulled apart, leaving me, as I feared, naked
But perhaps, instead, we would have been covered in sudden miracle
Some great emptying somehow filling all the spaces between you and me
Some great yearning made complete
As a new world turned beneath our feet

If only some wise sage, other than time and regret and age,
Would help us make our way
And teach us
That we won’t regret swinging, even if we miss
But we will regret standing still
And though errant words can be spent foolishly
We will lament all the more
The day we would not seize and make secure
And that as we make our way
We will regret, above all,
The words we would not say