When There is No One Left To Hear.

Come. Sit with me.
Here. Close. Not over there.
Close enough our thighs touch,
close enough we feel the heat of each other.

Tell me about your day.
Not merely the events, but what lies underneath.
If you are like me there are fears and frustrations
and maybe, hidden in it all, hopes and expectations.

Let’s remember, just for now, being young
when being together was a gift.
Not so much romance as a hunger to know more
and even more.

There is mystery, even after all these years.
Mystery, and that is not a bad thing.
There’s magic in it actually. A hunt
for clues, gentle interrogations by candlelight

and quiet. Rare moments with there is no world
except us. Where suddenly even discovery does not matter.
Just this. Presence. The dismissal of a world
with no concern about us except as numbers,

the dismissal of all that is unimportant,
while we know the secret of what matters.
This. A touch in the dark. A murmur in the night
when there is no one else left to hear.

About this poem

I read once that the average couple, after a few years of marriage, spends about 10 minutes a day actually talking to each other, once you cut out the bit about what to get at the grocery store and who picks up the kids from school.

10 minutes.

So this poem is to all those who have just that 10 minutes or less.

Or.. because poetry is never about one thing, a poem about faith and the time we spend with our God.

The settee is at The Mount. Edith Wharton’s home near Lenox, Mass.

Tom