Late and Last Loves
Ricochet of evening sounds
against the nipple deep shadows
of the lacy Boston fern and tall Pasture Pines
bending over our home like a natural tipi
and I am drawn to the circle of wonder
if they love as we love?
Do they know the throb of the heart
at the sight of us stepping out
into the crumble down branches of their youth
to find a lover’s promise, fulfilled,
in green writhe of a new shoot?
We are ageing, and the passion has changed
to a complacent comfort of the maple
tucked between the taller trees
leaning the tip of a branch against one older,
one wiser and more able to see heaven
and guide it there. You are older than I.
Love is the Oak and the German Ivy,
working our way up together. We know each knot,
each scar, on each other well in this soulful climb,
so different, such different paces, and yet
there is nothing else that we can do
but rub together in the call upwards.
Does the forest know that Spring and Summer
haul it forward into Fall and Winter,
but climbs nonetheless, together,
as if they could somehow be missed
in the swath and shatter of overuse and brittle
days are more easily stood, together?
Which one of us will forget to return, come renewal?
Is it the love of climbing or the simple need
to leave our mark on each other, to memorize
each touched and tender place, to see together
that is love? Or is it simply the sharing of seasons;
the whip of wind, the bite of late frost, the proud climb,
the success in seeing light together that is love?
Come evening, when night wraps its shroud around us
and the fern nods and the pines stand guard,
I am drawn to the circle of wonder
if they love as we love.
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