You are asleep and I lie beside you. How is it
that you can create tenderness and transcendence
when you are in stillness? Yes, the gentle breeze
of summer's night blows through the open window
and wafts through your golden hair, but you are
deep in slumber, and only the flame of the yellow
candle on the dresser top acknowledges this susurrus.
There is upon us a deep silence as the full moon
slowly makes its way across night's sky. I am now
carefully on my elbow gazing at your iridescent
visage. I turn my head and look at the mirror that
doubles my pleasure. Can I be this blessed even
for a moment? Serenity surrounds us. I lean over
to kiss your forehead lightly. Imagine a lifetime of
bliss, nightimes of joy, sharing with you in silence
the fullness of loving and being loved as the moon
passes by, as the yellow candle's flame flickers
like the vicissitudes of life, but knowing all the
while that gentle breezes will blow all unease and
uncertainties away as the sun begins to rise.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet, a novelist, and a human-rights advocate his entire adult life.
