The Kissing Gate Poem by Patrick Ladbrooke

There is a five bar gate,
white, by a woodland track
where, half a century back,
we talked till evening late.

Then walking in the almost dark,
her radiance and the night
made each and every footstep light,
as she breathed life to love's spark.

I find the gate that stands today,
as solid to the lean as then and
I stop to seek her face, as when
love graced that distant May.

But this gate is not the same,
a rotting frame replaced three fold
unlike the love unchanged I hold
sacred, in her whispered name.

And I must always have this dream,
hold tightly to its sturdy bars,
while wondering why the passing years
wash all before their cruel stream.

How different now, her youthful face,
held smiling in my mind?
And does she hold that special grace,
that made my love so blind?