DEARLY BELOVED ONE

It’s time to ask the morning sun,

sweet treat of day, to be

gentle in its early rise and late demise

in this year’s June illuminations.

May you know the need for

one of us to rest our head so

all of night’s too short dominion

be tightly matched; for sleep will

leave long-time tired eyes to open

slowly, which otherwise might catch

a ride far faster than the smallest fraction

of the speed required by kinder rays

to warm from the bottom to the top

the garden we considered was

the closest we came to Paradise.

 

And with that squared away

we could share our Heaven with

so many loves and friends; we

leavened our own lives in seeking

to respond to their own concerns,

heard in words that pass to and fro’;

and we did what we could to give back

at least the reciprocal of all those things

so breezily bestowed on us by these

truly welcome garden helpers – again,

we thank them for all they’ve done

in the trying times, the times for tears,

the times when temptation almost

shut the doors with false promises of

the end of cares, of all-day caresses.

 

And before we think we’re sure of

the course we’ll take, the last one

to endure, we’ll talk as once we did

to remind ourselves of the reasons why

we’re still in the garden, a gift from

someplace way up high that we know will

lead us, if we wish, through opened gates

which recall the one-ness of the whole shebang –

it matters nought the sort of man

who would be called king when life’s short game

confirms that it’s actually what you say and do

(a name’s as of nothing to me and to you).

 

And with that in mind we can safely press

our lips together to say I love you, I worship you,

thank you – then saunter our ways down and through

the garden to keep its looks as lovely as ever,

an emblem of our lives’ endeavours,

a semblance certainly of heavenly bliss

an arbour to stop and steal a kiss.