My beloved waits. She fills her days with humble tasks.
When I look at her I see myself–my eyes, my thoughts, my cry, my laugh.
Before I knew her I was but half, yet convinced that I was whole. “Now that I know you,
I realize it’s you I’ve longed to hold.”
Together we will be, forever, in the “silent memory of God.”
My beloved waits. She sees me in her dreams.
When we embrace we are alive.
Yet it’s when we’re apart that we become aware of life,
suspended in a temporal cessation, frozen in eternal frost,
until love’s warmth returns to melt our lonely hearts.
My beloved waits. She wakes me and helps me to the door.
Our love is like the water on a lake, splashing on the shores.
With stunted remorse it threatens to devour our hope,
less we loosen our grip on what keeps us afloat.
“To live is to die and to die is to live,” we whisper, and finally succumb.
My beloved waits. She sings to me a song of love.
The love we share is like no other. It’s love we’ve known all our lives!
This love shines from deep within, so bright in fact, it burns our eyes.
Yet when it appears we inhale the mist, allowing it to tempt our hearts.
This fantastic love, it lures us! Beckoning us to come forth.
Then with reprieve it kindly stoops, an utterance from its mouth:
That our love, if it is truly love, will be love that has no bounds.

Poem and Illustration by Jesse Turri for my love Natalie.

Tags:free verseIllustrationloveNatalie TurriPoetry