Fifty years, a lifetime for some but for me the blink
of an eye as true love is the ripe fruit of a lifetime
and those fifty years have seemed to me but a few
days.

The love I have had for her , like great loves,  lives
on and on and I love her more today than yesterday
and our love, forever warm and still to be enjoyed
is forever panting and forever young.

In the light and warmth of love our life grows
strong and comely, a better dwelling nor a sweeter
I have never found knowing that the heart that has
truly loved never forgets and loves on to the close.

No matter what beauties I saw on my way back to
you, they were but visits but you are my home and
chance cannot change my love nor time impair
knowing that love beyond the world cannot be
separated by it as great  loves live on and on.

Let us tend love's fire until the end knowing that
youth is but an hour, beauty a flower but love is
the jewel that wins the world and as age enriches
true love these five words I swear to you; I'll be
there for you and know that I'd live and die for
you but my words can't say what love can do
and as you breathe I want to be the air for you.

Somewhere there waits in this world of ours the
crowning glory of loving and being loved and
what is earth with all of its Art, Poetry and Music
worth--compared with love found and kept,
defining love as two souls in one, two hearts
into one heart knowing that he is not a lover
who does not love forever.
                                                        ­           Jon York    2018