Tag: Love

“I Am The One Who Was…”

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment 
A morning gray, a two-day rain, 
A mind wrapped up in here and now, 
A half-day passed, a needed a break, 
Surprised to find the world now blue 
And full of early flowers in bloom 
His car took him (it seemed) down to 
A place of stones, and flowers, and rest 
And words and dates and silences -- 
  A hand upon my shoulder now 
  With no one there, with no one there.

"I Am The One Who Was" it said, 
Or they all said, in different words; 
A living presence grown and gone 
Now missing in the hearts of those 
Who once took shape and came alive 
In feeling skin and hearing voice 
In ways no others ever could 
For what is known and felt is kept 
  Inside the vault we can't unlock 
  For someone took the key and left, 
  For someone took the key

  and left

Midpoints

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Personal Essays1 Comment

We mark significant beginnings and ends when we are aware of them. But we frequently aren’t aware, except in retrospect.

Once we are aware that a first time has occurred and a last time is coming, it becomes about what we do with all the times in between. Otherwise we miss the moments themselves, which is all life is comprised of.

My wife and I have been married going on 26 years, and we are currently are on a vacation together in Nashville, Tennessee. A little mental math tells me that we are almost certainly closer to our last such trip together than we are to our first one.

Almost every good and beautiful thing I have in my life traces back to her, and I hope a day never goes by that she doesn’t know that I cherish her and all the moments we get together. Long love is not about putting on a show, it is about showing up.

And she always shows up for me.

more different

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
you were a habit, 

but less like binging than 
like breathing -- 

i saw you daily as 
a part-filmed spirit 

reflections on a lake 
i'd never been to, 
let alone 

been in 

but after years made 
out of frayed yarn 

there came an apple-day when 

there, from a tree in 
a lost backyard 

we climbed a stepladder 
our heads among the fresh leaves 

and you 

you could not have been

more different

on the lee side

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
there's little shelter to be found
once ship has left the port;
the elements will have their say
and nature make its sport --

for trouble, and adventure, both
can lead, or, devastate:
and sailors no more dodge the wind
than lovers hide

from fate

One Man’s View of Loving A Woman

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems7 Comments

(for my wife — )

I wouldn’t write monologues
If I knew how to have conversations.
With her, I know how –

Closeness, where
The necessity of distance is
Understood;

Distance, where
The reality of closeness is
Felt.

The younger man’s hunger to always be joined, and
The older man’s desire to always see her flourish;
To see her safe to give full play to her own powers
So long as life’s vicissitudes allow for it.

The perpetual amazement of knowing someone
Wants me to cause me pleasure;
The unceasing desire to be her pleasure,
Or her sounding board,
Or her solace, as needed.

In a bare room, she is
The only decoration required;
And when she is deep in thought,
The world slows itself into kindness.

We only get so many spins of the Earth;
Eventually, it flings us off —
But when the day comes
That this planet travels on without me,
I will have known the miracle that is
The creation of a new whole universe of reality

Out of two people

When I Call…

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
WHEN I call you, I hope you know 
That every longed-for Spring 
And every treasured Autumn is 
In every kind of thing 

Between us said or else unsaid -- 
For this I know, and true: 
When I call you, it is because 
There's always 

Only

You

a heart let go

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
she tried to let me down easy, but 
there was nothing easy about me then. 
she knew i wasn't it for her, 
but she seemed all of that for me, 
and i wondered where i'd failed, and what 
i could have done or said or been 
to turn me into what she'd want, 
which sadly seemed just "other men", 
and truly, not long after, she 
began to date the man she wed.

the left behind feel "lesser than" 
because we are. it's just a fact. 
but being a man, i've found, is mostly  
learning to deal with failure. 
i failed for years at dating, then 
i failed in my first marriage, then 
i failed in being a father, then 
moved on to my current failures, which 
will identify themselves in retrospect. 

but all we can do is the best we can, 
and let go of the failures and move to the next, 
for the dials turn, and the wheels go 'round, 
and we cannot know, or perhaps, suspect, 
where the next failure may be coming from. 
but it all in the end's part of our tale -- 
for to live is to love, 
and to love's, most certainly, 

to fail

Maybe A Middle Way

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems3 Comments 
Not all of us can do a flip 
Not all of us can juggle 
There need not be a fight, although 
There always is a struggle 

For if we'd see in different ways 
We must get off the bus 
That shows us only the same views 
That reinforce our "us"

The high sun burns us all the same, 
The winter cold all stings -- 
The common ground's outside our walls 
And made of 
Common 

Things

A Fingerpainted Moment

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment 
She asked me to come see her. 
We walked beside the bay, 
An omnipresent sky above 
A fingerpainted day -- 

She asked me not to leave her. 
I said I had to go,   
For the sun goes down on everything 
We'll ever feel 

Or know