Tell Me, Love
Tell me, Love, relate to me
Your epic tale, your Odyssey.
What have you been that now you are
A spirit on this circling star?
What Ithaca did you call home?
Where have your youth's companions gone?
On what blue seas, what winds of chance,
By what strange chain of circumstance
Have you come here to me and mine,
From stardust, through the mist of time?
Time, in counting what my hours will be,
do not include the nights she was away
nor count the hours of every lonely day
as time allotted me.
Those were not mine. If it were I who chose
what hours to count and what to cast away,
I’d count the hours when in my arms she lay;
those were my living hours. Count those, I’d say.
Leftover Love
Dear to our hearts our other loves,
Dear the memories.
Dear to us the things they touched.
Our hearts melt seeing these.
Dear are the years they shared with us.
Time will not sweep away
The memories of youth and love.
These things will stay.
But, love, we two are left alone
And there is love to give.
So put your tender hand in mine
And we will love, and live.