Yet Love Remains

"When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep"

                       William Butler Yeats "WhenYou Are Old"

I think about the sweet days our youth,

the world was spread before us for the taking--

invincible, we weathered many storms

safety found inside each other's arms.

Discovered life together, you and I…

rappelling over cliffs and chasms deep;

wary of the monsters in the darkness--

learning that my strength resides in you.

Will love remain inside where memories steep,

when you are old and gray and full of sleep?

So many years between have come and gone

the passion found in youth not often held;

yet on occasion universe aligns--

amazing how a kindred spirit bonds

once it finds the niche where it belongs.

We couldn’t know this when we undertook

to forge a life together, you and I.

Yet over time, my love for you remains.

I hear you breathing softly while I look,

and nodding by the fire, take down this book.

The one that holds the stories that we’ve shared

well-chronicled and inked to stave our memory;

each page presents an instant froze in time,

designed to be reviewed in quiet moments…

a lifetime kept in images we’ve saved.

I scan the scraps and photos that we took,

and settle once again on favorite image--

given to me after we first met.

On cushions soft, I settle in this nook,

and slowly read and dream of the soft look...

in contemplative moment it was captured--

in graying skies your eyes shown cobalt blue;

from that moment, I was captured too.

And so we came to know each other well;

to compliment the other; to complete.

I turn the page, and now it seems that sleep

beckons me to close and come to bed.

I stretch out in the hollow of your arm

to slip away and dream of white-hot heat

your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

 © Ginny Brannan 2013

Sharing at d'Verse Poets Pub Open link Night Week #98.

Trying my hand at a glosa, introduced to us at d’Verse Poets Pub Form For All: Paying Tribute, Page and the Glosa by Samuel Peralta/Semaphore.

The glosa is a form of poetry from the late 14th century and was popular in the Spanish court. The introduction, the cabeza, is a quatrain quoting a well-known poem or poet.

The second part is the glosa proper, expanding on the theme of the cabeza, consisting of four ten-line stanzas, with the lines of the cabeza used to conclude each stanza.

Lines six and nine must rhyme with the borrowed tenth.

There are no rules governing meter and line length, except that traditionally, they emulate the style of the lines in the cabeza. Because of its structure, the glosa is ideally used as a poem of tribute. In writing that tribute, you weave your lines with the lines of the opening cabeza, collaborating, as it were, with the spirit of the poet you honour.

I honor William Butler Yeats, "When You Are Old"