Two Lovers

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Two lovers

by Gordon Edwards

Two lovers

gray with age

arrive at the door

of an old white

church,

where their life

as one began.

Fifty years ago

they walked this

aisle hand-in-hand

from the garden

into the wilderness;

now the wilderness

has bloomed

now the garden

is filled with hours

of ruby slipper sand.

There is the longing

in the soul

that dreams

and waits

impatiently

it is the owl

who'ing in the dark.

There is a moment

when lovers know.

The dance of courting,

romancing,

sweet seducing,

draws to a close

as a curtain

marks the acts ...

when lovers know.

There is the pause

so short,

so eternity,

when the breath

is held,

when the words

rush out around

the question

the sun rises

full

and is never seen.

There is no time,

like the time

that falls away ...

when there is

only knowing ...

the faces of time,

the beauty out

of time.

There may be

an ache

of absence

so minutes swell

and drag as drops

of water on a

pane of glass

in the wind,

the clock moves

in largo,

the passing is ever

out of reach.

There is this table

where I sit and gaze

upon the sun and moon

as they drift across

your eyes

and fill me with

their light

I can see

a thousand suns

and moons

in the turning

of your eyes.

There are the

walls that echo

carpenters

who labored

long ago,

in this darkened

room, where the

lovers blow

upon the coals

that glowed so

orange red--

they feel it

in the bones

that pound

as hammers with

a rhythmic slap

of a banjo clock.

There are the days

of looking back,

the days of birth

and wedded bliss,

the photographs

that now bemuse

and soak up

the hours that spin

into a woven

thread,

the lovers weave

to dab their eyes.

Lovers know the

history--

the winding

of the vine

that carries them

in pumpkin coach

these roots

hold all the shoots of pain

these roots

hold all the bloom of time ...

the lovers

only know.

10.

Lovers know the

fullness,

the lovers know the

ends,

the last empty

heart

within the

first,

the first full