A Pragmatist’s Love Song

I have not fallen in love with you,
as if love were a puddle into which one trips
by accident, and from which one might stumble just as easily.

I am not mad about you,
our love a confused and screaming Bedlam,
filled with unreal fears and phantasms that don’t know truth.

You have not captured my heart,
as if it were a frightened animal that one can snare
and cage but which always longs for the solitary forest.

You are neither my northern star,
my sun nor my moon, for one cannot set another’s path
or illumine his world.

Our love is not eternal,
but will one day be completed
when we finally meet Love face to face.

But you are my wife. I choose to take your hand and walk through our years together. I will lean on you when I stumble, and support you when you are tired. I will stand by you when the last of the children marches off to make her own life, and will hold you when you cry. I am on your side when you’re a saint and when you’re a shrew. I will cheer for you, play with you, support your adventures, listen to your fears, rejoice with your victories, mourn with your losses, hope and pray with you, and always be your friend. I love you.

Presented to [Kathy->] on the occasion of her 33rd birthday. Many thanks to [Daniel Priest->], my one-man writer’s workshop.