A Downpayment on Forever

Late in the day, it turns out to be
not the Valentines you would have liked.
Plans fell apart.
I had a reaction to medicines
that left me feverish in a very non-valentine’s way.
We did some work,
then off to bed where my ears rang
with the heat. Unable to sleep,
I lay there for two hours, fever rising
until I surrendered.

And yet, not being able to do, to go,
to put on the Ritz and romance,
I sat with my journal and wrote
my own personal song of thanks,
of gratitude, of belief in and amazement at

her.

A small word, that. Three letters. Nothing in it,
left to its own devices
that could begin to give it the meaning
another three letter word, she, means to me,
of the passion and transformation,
of the restoration in that most powerful of a four letter word,

love,

to it’s proper place. A place you always believed it should be,
could be, layer on layer, fairy tale and work,
passion, faithfulness and patience,
a soul that listens to mine,
sometimes better than I hear myself.

Beauty and laughter and kindness.
A wildness. The heart of a child and a woman
too much of what I love to believe
that I have come to know, is real.

And yet, here we are. Together for years.
Treasured years. Years still seen in the frame of amazement.
a downpayment on forever
that deserves more than a day to celebrate.

About this poem

I really have been fighting some medicine allergies today. But it will pass, probably tonight if the docs are right. Not the valentines I like. But the love? OMG, I continue, as the poem says, to live in the amazement of it all.

Tom