Holding hands, we've walked through many years,
A gift of daily choice called happiness.
Perhaps such love's not easy to express.
Perhaps the only fit remarks are tears.
Yet under light, love's beauty stabs and sears,
Too real to be reduced to more or less,
Wistful paradise, pure tenderness,
Embrace beyond fulfillment, longing, fears.
No commitment could be more complete,
There being little in one's life untouched.
Years pass; the roots and branches intertwine;
Fortune seems like fate; two souls seem one.
In fact, one's choice is one one must repeat.
Free will demands one's separateness, as such.
To love is to create a place in time -
Here, now, a labor that is never done.
Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.