In celebration of April as National Poetry Month and our 50th wedding anniversary (yes, I was a child bride), I’ll be reposting a series I published here years ago, an anatomy of love as it evolves over time, exploring married love in all of its manifestations:  Innocent love, erotic love, disappointed love, love lost, love renewed, and love that lasts.

Part I, Some Silly Little Love Poems, Loosed at Last

He was a young handsome marine, fresh from his tour of duty in Vietnam. I was senior in high school, a flower-child who wrote poetry and read Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. We were the opposites that attract. I dropped out of school to marry him because he had to move away for work and I couldn’t live without him. But as an Ironworker building bridges and topping off sky-scrapers, his work kept taking him away from me. And as a freshman in college with a baby on the way, I could not follow, so we were constantly being parted. I wrote these poems to mourn his absence and celebrate love’s sweetness. The last one shows too the fear I felt of losing him forever, for his work on the high iron was so dangerous. These poems lay in a drawer for decades till published here.

Now, While

Now
While the love-light of your eyes
Shines upon my face,
And your bare-bodied shadow
Presses close to mine,

Now
With the moonlight and trees
Spreading patterns across our bed,
And the corners of the room
lie dark and drowsy,

Now
Let us kiss and love.

Then
While our bodies still hungrily cling
Let us sleep,

Closely breathing,
Closely dreaming,
Close in love.

Gone

You’re gone!
And though I know
You’ll be back Monday
The word gets caught between
The empty of my arms

Just Asking

We loved
We came to be like
Mirrors, reflecting like

I saw myself
An image in your eye.

When you’re gone
I find myself
And empty likeness

I question, are you gone
Or am I?

Would That Love

Would that love move me once
That it move me far enough
Would that love move me now
In all I do.

For the way is far too strong
That would push against the throng,
Cut me loose to lose myself
In loving you.

Since the day will surely show
When I’ll have to let you go
What a waste to love you then
With clutching arms.

So let me meet your every wish
Make myself a selfless gift
That I fill to overflowing
Loving you.

And when we part, if part we must,
I’ll unclasp in loving trust,
For Love spent us to the full
In every way.

PART II – Erotic Love

PART III – Disappointed Love

PART IV – Love Lost and Love Renewed

PART V – Lasting Love