Aspiration

There is something really special

about a couple that has grown old

together.

When you've been through

several summers, winters and storms 

together

and endured- sometimes also shined-

I am obliged to bow in front of them 

with respect and an envious form of 

admiration.

I want to grow old with my husband, too

and draw jealousy from youthful eyes 

when they see the warmth with which

we still hold hands,

and speak our own silent language

that no one else knows.

I want us to sparkle like a rare emerald

at a cocktail party 

that everyone looks at and gasps with awe,

but only the really lucky ones 

get to wear 

on luckier fingers 

that garland their lover's being.

Endurance

Everyone will tell you

that you aren't enough;

you are insignificant and irrelevant-

a fat burden on the shoulders 

of those far more important;

"You ought to be grateful", they say.

But what about those dark nights

when it was your unfaltering flame

that kept their fire burning?

What about those times

when your trembling hands

held this house of cards

and kept it from crashing?

And what about the day 

when you bled copiously

so they could sleep on a bed of roses?

People forget the worth

of those who don't often announce it.

This world and this age 

have no regard for humility.

The graceful must live 

in a dark cage of silence. 

Lonesome

There was once a day

When we sat in the October sun.

You played with my hair

Like it was a violin string;

And I stared at your face

Like it was my homeland-

Your lips announced my existence

And your eyes decided the shape

Of my body.

Our hands were entwined 

Into a serpentine belt of 

Oneness. 

You held my dreams,

And I held your reality.

But the sun doesn't shine forever,

And October eventually melts away;

And today, all I'm left yearning for 

Is not poetry, is not the temperance

Of your everyday kisses,

It is you, in your opaque entirety.

Because I do not yet know how 

To not be loved by you,

And if I have my way, 

I'd prefer never to learn.

Motherhood

As I held your hot palm 

in the dead of a long night,

and your body tasted fever 

for the first time in your 

innocent, blessed life

I realised that real love 

was this.

Powerful, maternal, and consuming;

my prayers are couplets 

that I chant for you

and for your life to be 

a bed of beautiful, red roses

even if no human has had 

that good fortune yet.