DEEP,
deep in the long green days of summer, the crescendos
of heat bugs rising in the noon sun, the hot air, thick as a lake—
So far into this marriage, like a John Deere harvester in a field of corn,
a small green island planted right in the middle of everything—
Even the grass on the lawn breathes longing,
the complicated chemistry of light into sugar— Sometimes, I feel
the small hairs on my arm rise, ionic as the air before a storm—
And you are the clapper, and I am the bell cast in bronze around you.
Before we slip into sleep’s black waters, we set the golden tones ringing,
ripples of moonlight falling on the bed sheets and quilt,
our bodies’ music in the dark.
— Barbara Crooker, 2005
Previously appeared in print in Solo.
But love...
is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action,
a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.
~ Nicholas Sparks
Love/Life Poems
