The Heart's Geography

I waited once for you, beneath the lamp,
So you could see my face when you arrived,
But when you came, the moment was contrived,
The dew was rising, temperate but damp,
And silence, like a dark, tenacious clamp,
Held back the dawn. Had nothing else survived
But my own heart, that quiet might have thrived,
But you chose something of another stamp.

You chose the moon, the stars, the endless sound
Of ocean waves, the bright electric spark
That new machines make, as they leave their mark
On lives and cool geography, the ground
Torn, rippled, bent, devoured, used up, and bound.
I choose the silence, and I choose the dark.