He left.
All his prior life miles away.
As he drove he watched the trees stream by in a blur.  The autumn colours calling to him but he did not listen.
The land where he spent his childhood had no pull. The places he grew up no longer could contain him. 
There was nothing to hold him, yet he continues to come back, to visit and remember, hoping.

She sent him a simple note. Nothing binding, yet he came anyway.  
It was a power she had, a power he granted her.
This is why he came back.
Yet he could not tell her in as many words.  
Doesnt want to drive her away again.
Doesnt want to make the same mistake.

He dies each time he makes this trip
Just a little
A knife would be easier
the bitter taste of hemlock 
These things however would erase that one ray of light
hope

Night is coming, the welcomed time of day
He never feels so alive as when its dark
Below through the clouds the land glides faintly past
He can almost feel a tenuous link he images to her a thin
thread being stretched tighter as he flies, never breaking
Its reassuring

There was a time in the past when he wanted to severe this
link, to lose touch, to let go his past
Now that urge could not be further from his mind.
.