Monday, February 14, 2011

The Truest Truth I Know

(I wrote this poem last year for Valentine's Day, and surely it bears repeating)

From across a smoke-filled bar
I saw you,
index finger summoning,
so I approached
and fell in love
with the girl next
to me.

At an intersection,
two roads converging,
I sat the next day
hands at 10 and 2
and did not know 

the light had changed.

With each thought of you, 

time still stops—
rocking a baby so she would not cry,
searching for shells on a white sand beach,
stringing beads with a silly six-year-old,
knitting a scarf to give to a friend,

sending a 12-year-old off to camp--
Time stops, 
but my heart goes on in certainty.

In the future all I want is you.
If I beckon now,
will you sit with me
and hold my hand when I am old,
a greybeard upon some park bench
mumbling nonsense that only you
are meant to understand.


To Beth, with love
Michael
2010

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