As we are sitting still, summer goes by,
And you and I are by the water. Here
We mostly think of how we fell in love.
Portside, by wave, and sun, and drink, and sweet.

The chill grows heavy. I drawl you to me
And think small winter thoughts, and you are calm.

Steady lover, soft roots grown deep and strong,
And far from me. I’m prone to flight for  fear.
Yet still, I’ve read maps long enough to know,
The river opens where we met. So wings
Turn to follow different paths. You've gone

Back home, to valleys higher than my own
Naive to the design of the river
Or how it made convenient paths. On Which
They built the freeways I would fly to reach
Your door, again, every new moon or so.

It's five am, and there's a slow soaking rain.
It came with a single clap of thunder.
It carries
not only the washed clean smell
of falling water,
but also flowers,
Red maple bark,
and autumn leaves.
There's not an ounce of light yet,
but I swear I feel the warmth
just below the horizon
like love that has yet to blossom.
Its echo whispers. Give it time.

After years,
You kiss me goodbye each morning.
You tell me, “Have a good day pretty girl.”
And though I stopped feeling like a girl years ago,
in that moment,
I am something sweet and beautiful and innocent.

I don't know how I summoned you
from the ether
To know my heart so perfectly.
When you touch me I am transmogrified
Into a cat in a sunbeam,
Stretching into contentment

Last year for Christmas you bought
A witchcraft kit,
And though I've never cast a spell
It enchants me
That you, who believe in nothing,
Believe I am magic.

You are a slow lava flow
hard rock over a
flowing magma heart.

The catch of your breath
feels like a mountain shaking.
You are a calm surface,
a gentle heat,
and every mineral I need.

you may never explode,
but any good geologist would agree
a volcano is the best way to go.

let me die
still studying
the very heart of you,
in 50 years or so.

Cover me beneath the earth.
Hide me in the warm darkness
Counting each little death until spring.

Keep me safe all winter
curled up in you.
Remind me, when the dark brings sadness,

I still like winter best.
the gentle magic
the hearth fires
Playing in the snow
with you.

I will write happy
I am resigned to it.
It is hard in some ways,
Not throwing gut punches in ink.
Not entreating with the stars to make something of passing passions.
I used to be so filled with longing.
Well, I still am
But now it is ever satisfied.

And you deserve love poems,
The top shelf kind.
Because you make me feel love
not wish for it
or pine.

I don't feel the need to abstract you.
But  I have you.
You have me, and it's the happiest thing I can think of.
And all my friends are tired of hearing it.
So I have to write happy.
So I can write about you.

I don't want to go outside, not ever.
I want to stay in here with you.
I don't like the outside pressures.
I like our cocoon.

People ask if we are chafing.
Growing quarrelsome or cross.
And I laugh until I am shaking.
If ever I am frustrated, you are not the cause.

I have loved you for three years and will forever.
And, no matter what, all I see,
Is that I will never
be prepared for you to go from me.

I was thinking, if you live to be 80
It would only give me 45 years to spend with you
and though that is longer than we've lived already.
I still think it would be too soon.

I am stupidly in love with your smile
and the way we dance from room to room.
So, I'm fine if we don't go outside for a while
I like our cocoon.