First Love Poem by Patrick Dennis

Did I ask for this? I who, before we met,
scratched the surface and sowed the weeds of my time.
What charms, what magic, what enchantment did you have?
You with the tang of fruit - sweet-half-ripe -
and I a hungry boy who neither knew ripe fruit
nor the art to outwit the winter frost.

And now the seasons of growth and green long gone
this void that blots my heart's being
and sucks in the September sky to grey smog -
is it just a blank that begs for a smiling sweet girl
or perhaps, is it, the tunnelling down to hell's bottom?
Or perhaps again the prelude-black to heavenly bliss?

Bliss?
I long for the bliss of no first love. Or meeting you
to have had seasons upon seasons of practiced pure eye and hand,
a mind and a heart for storms and winters
and the sorrowed out sweet skill
to husband and harvest ripe fruit.