ON OUR ANNIVERSARY

On our anniversary
       as I watch you dress, I notice
        how lightly the years have brushed your face

I look at you
        and still see the piquant beauty
        with the brooding eyes

You are eternally
        the effervescent high school girl
        all giggles and breathless kisses

stolen on star-crusted
        beaches on evenings we hoped
         would last forever

You turn from the mirror
        to see me looking back at you;
        your smile washes away five decades

and I’m eighteen again
        standing on the beach, finally realizing
        the evening will last forever



GOLDEN PEARLS

The years accumulate like clam shells
washed ashore upon the beige sands of a Caribbean beach

Like fanciful children, we open the first ones
with eagerness, others with trepidation, and still others
as if ensconced in a dream, moving with rote routine,
giving only vague thought to what lay inside

Yet each pearl is immersed in its own special beauty
that only we two can fully appreciate,
for we shaped each one, polished its sheen,
imbued it with a glint reflected from our eyes,
like the twinkle from a far off galactic fire
burning since the beginning of time

The years, like the pearls,
have varied in quality. Some were dull and blemished,
misshapen and undersized.
While so many others were perfectly formed,
smooth and untarnished, radiating a flawless sheen,
full and breathtaking

Yet all of them are strung together
piece by piece, until they form
an unbroken necklace,  unique and permanent,
like time itself, each one a chapter in our history,
the strand binding us together

You are my golden pearl, my treasure,
the content and meaning of my life,
my purpose and motivation

And over a half century ago when the first pearl was formed
flawless and symmetrical, I knew then
I would lock each one away in the sanctuary
of my heart and soul