Sometimes I still see a trace of desire,
How she looked at me when we met.
The years bury that trace in acquaintance
But there once remains a prospect,
Even beyond the childcare years,
Well into adulthood, from time to time,
The trace of desire pauses between us
Like a dragonfly on the tip of a stem.
Now that we approach old age together
I wonder how long desire will last,
Beyond beds owned and sleep lost,
This lingering, fraying tether.
I love the way you’ve captured the poignancy of the changes in love and desire as we age, yet continue to remain in our relationships. Love changes over time from that urgent passion in early days to the ‘barely making love at all days’. That often interrupted love during early childhood years when the desperate need for sleep and exhaustion seem to cancel any thought of love making. Then the tangle of their adolescence, our clashing careers and ambitions and the sheer lack of time. What sustains love is the care, concern and all the shared values, ideology and hopes. When the kids leave home there was relief. Empty nest ? No! Sheer joy! The responsibility relinquished. Whole people delivered to the world to make their own way (with back up, of course). Now to the next phase and beyond!
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Happy you liked the poem. Thanks! It’s one of my few attempts at this sort of poem. Hopefully I’ll have more to say in the future on the vicissitudes of love and marriage. Best wishes! Sal.
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just beautiful….very poignant
i loved it
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Thanks so much!!!
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