This is our anniversary. Oh, don’t ask which one. It is certainly getting on, that is for sure. After however many years it has been, this love has endured, and is still a great source of comfort and strength to us both. This is more for Pam, than for you, gentle reader. But this weblog helps us to keep our thoughts and experiences for when we are truly old. I would like to preserve this thought – captured in verse – so that in years to come it could be found.

Love’s not found
in languid looks
or impassioned sighs
and phrases muttered
as soon forgot as uttered;
or gifts that beggar cost
that ages soon will render lost.

Love’s not found in roses faded
or poses jaded by petty
jealousies. Such love only sees
what it most craves, and
not the other’s careworn ways,
or anxious fears and voiceless sighs
through toil of years now weak.

And this I speak, though
words come hard when
life’s brute strength has
worn away the sense and
bluish of love’s first kiss.

But know this: my dear
wife’s love’s a fire. Though
banked with care of those
not there and dearly missed;
it lingers ever kissed in her warm heart.

No flight of startled doves,
her love’s a constant light
to my still soul. A friend enfolded.
On this I’ve built a life
unmoved by ‘if’s and ‘should’s,
but bouldered yet by what
is good and of eternal worth.

Her love is measured
in our enduring tale, in purpose
bound, and futures claimed,
in restoration gained,
and forgiveness found.
To her I owe all this.
In her I find my peace