Sea Whispers

 

On the less travelled side of the horizon

Two gypsy birds slide along the Channel trades

The sun inlaying their jewel antics.

When we were young our bodies wrote love in the sand

We burned without fear of carcinoma

And every star was a supernova

Pieces that couldn’t help fitting together

Mortise and tenon and old-time carpentry

When we spoke it was in unison

When we sang it was in harmony

The years have added season and flavour

Words are now often unnecessary

As we get an occasional silence in edgewise

Your eyes are still as blue as the July waves

That used to tickle our holiday feet.

The small definitions of love mean the most

The washed up breezes on the tideline

The faint scars of love and recognition

The casual shrug of a lifetime

The loose thread of conversation

The words unsaid, but understood

Tender around that shared heart collision.

A quarter of a century ago

When you were half the age you are now

And looked for the other half in my direction

It is in the tiny things that love is defined

The pebbles on a Sussex beach

Reaching out to the horizon

You believed in me back then

When there was nothing to believe in

That act of faith led me to believe too.

In me there was always you

Something beautiful found in the spaces

Something hoped for come true

I loved you in all those places

The tidal rivulets and glistening rock pools

Seaweed garnish and mussel shells

Where the shoreline joins the skyline

Lies our personal eternity.

Love is not a panorama

It lives in the cracks and the crevices

The small detail of the laughter lines

And the turn of the face

As the light fades

And because we are used to the world shouting

We sometimes miss it when it whispers.

 

For Lindy after 25 years of being in love 

Roy Stannard 4.4.10