An Unfinished Poem

The years have rushed by
like a small mountain stream
chortling through moss covered rocks.
It's hard not to see my life with my beloved
in the same way, rushing along as it should
ever changing, ever the same, timeless,
but moving so swiftly.

I cannot define love.
It is like trying to define the ocean ...
it is too vast, too complex,
the only continuity to its expression
is water, beyond that, everything else
is but a matter of degrees.

Such is love.
A man's love for a woman
has no comparison
to his love for his mother,
or his sister, or his daughter.
Each is love - each is different.
The only continuity to its expression
is that it is an emotion of caring.
Beyond that, everything else
is but a matter of degrees.

I have never written my beloved
a love poem.
Oh, I have written love poems
and their subjects were often women
I "loved." Still, I never referred to them
as my 'beloved' like I do her.
The images were usually drawn
from the language of desire, of lust,
things still so familiar
evan after all these years
of faithful monogamy.
But this is not my love for her,
only a part, like the great whate
that swims in the ocean
is only a part of the greater whole.

So how do I define my love for her?
No one image can express the depth,
the breadth, the breath of life itself
that is my love for her.
I think about her beauty
and any simile falls short,
or seems too cold, too static.
Her spirit has become something
almost palpable to me .
I can sense her being
even before I see her,
her energy washing over me
like cool scented air.

I am content to simply have her near me.
I need no words, only her presence,
to calm my fears and reassure me.

And this, then, is my love poem to her.
Simply being with her, my life with her,
these are the stanzas and rhyme.
An unfinished poem
of love.