Every day you patient test what zeal
might this day be compressed
between the two of you in skin,
no way to know when who begins.
No longer sole, never alone,
when bright lands saw the start of home,
a limited company prised from all,
two hardy annuals left to grow.
This is an Autumn, now I see, in one’s
gloves left round love tightly
over another’s honest hands gone
forth to journey out on sand.
The world has shrunk as love has grown with each kind word more us is sown;
I’ll stow away in pome all this
array for bloom when darkness looms,
sieves out all trace of what was once,
an ever-lasting closed couplet.
Dedicated to M. and K.
(R. and I., D. and A., G. and B., and N. and J.)
© Pat Mellow 2018
