Slow Jazz and Anticipation – A Poem for Deb on her Birthday

When I saw you on the patio,
the wind filling and turning the umbrella above you,
and you smiled at me as I rounded the bicycle stand,
something like the tugging chaos of aging
and the aimless ripples of daily worry
fell away
and only sunlight stood between us.

When I saw you through the kitchen window
I was spinning lettuce.
And I remembered,
33 years ago,
the sound your dress made
when you slid in beside me
on the seat of the Buick Skylark
and all I heard was slow jazz and anticipation.

When we walk to the end of the breakwater
and stand in a lushness of silence
or talk through some tidal lock of tears
while watching the bruised sea
turn its pages, 
then, turning home, I love that you always marvel
at how stars switch on
in the deepening dusk.

When I see you in the green of a garden,
or bending for sea-glass on a pebbled beach
or walking above the cove
leaning into time and chance,
I think, I never want us to die,
and then that great sadness comes,
which I count as grace.


15 Comments

  1. Steve: I wish for all the women so cherished, whose lovers are not poets, that they might recognize themselves when they read your poem for Deb. And I wish for those of us, alone, reading these words that we can, even for an eye-blink, be unreservedly glad for those so cherished!

  2. Love seems to bless all those who are aware of it. Blessed by the theme and the beauty of poetic expression.

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