A Kiss That's Never Felt

The radiance of sun-bright air,
a kiss that’s never felt upon a face upraised,
is not recalled by one whose skies have always been a vault of gray.
     But it is missed and grieved.

Though flowers in wild profusion, or a single bloom,
may not be found in wastes of sand and stone,

yet their bouquet and hue against the dust and dun

if even once beheld, are known and loved.
For never seen, their fragrance never breathed,
     they ever still are missed and grieved.

The quickened pulse beneath a lover's riffed caress,
perhaps a pleasure never known,
is still desired throughout one’s life,
     by even virgins missed and grieved.

An infant’s fingers curled about an offered one

and its contented gurgles like the chuckling sighs
of woodland brooks along their gravel beds,
are graces never known by some and even feared.
Yet even so, by some intrinsic need in life
     such gifts are missed and grieved.

The sanguine rush of war or even active sport
is never felt by those who only know of peace
and nothing of a sturdy contest in a challenge met.
Exhilaration for the battle fought, the sight of foes in routed flight,
though never known in wan experience,
     within the heart are missed and grieved.

There is a hope apart from faith to have the countenance of God –
or that of reckless Chance or faithless Fate –
in favor beaming on the path through life.
A treasure ill-conceived, much less defined, it still is much desired,
and grace of God or fortune not bestowed
     is sorely missed and grieved.

But memory and comprehension of experience
are crueler than the hunger pangs of innocence.
The winds of spirit, storms of blood and babies known

beyond imagination's realm are hostages of transience.
The pleasant contemplations of the sensate soul

experienced as real are then most truly mourned when lost

in wretched pools of nevermore that well from having ever been.

Sensations briefly held which slip from time to memory's domain
     become indeed profoundly missed and grieved.