Never Journey Far From Me

(To my husband Stefan. Happy 1 week anniversary, tesoro.
I am so in love with you.)

All the quiet afternoon I envision you,
thinking about adoration, I remember.
I close my eyes, follow a feather trail
beneath the azure sky, where you draw
me down tenderly.

Contained by the summer breeze,
the scent of twin souls permeate
the air. It is there, where I promise
poetry against the cherry of your
precious heart—
because I must empty myself of
self,... I must scream love into
infinity, like a beacon in the night
calling the ships home.

Thus spoken, these words I offer:

by way of San Francisco, warmed
by an illumination that reflects in your
window, my eyes will uncover all that
is beautiful.

An embrace, evidence of the real.
An untainted beating in the chest,
my only compass.

Never journey far from me.
Lead me to your nirvana.

Allow me to reveal love, to capture
and set free all that is ours.
So, when the aching sea pushes to
the California shore, naught could
weaken, ever churn the palms
of our fragile hands—so nothing
would loosen the bond between
us two.

Allow me to take you home, my love.
I will carry you to where nothing splits
the rings that bind our lives—where
prayers like a circle of summer songs
that swim within the loving eye, idling
a moment before slipping to sand.

It will be in that moment, we will
become paper boats and sail into
the horizon together—
that sacred second within the sea,
where you and I speak our vows
into the future, incessantly.

Your wife,
Cher

*Draft I
9/06/08