Always Together, Never Again

We always said we would always be together

          Never dreamed of being one without the other

Always be together, at least in these short lives

          No one can say how we first met or why

Those long hours we spent wrapped in each other

          Always waking up with you so warm by my side

I can imagine my own death and some endless stillness

          But I can never imagine being without you

I see our skeletons intertwined on a quiet, hidden hilltop

          Every year we both bleach away just a little more

Always together and slowly fading away as one

          So where now is that love which never ended?

We were made for each other, as we always said

          And when each is finished is that purpose simply quenched?

The joy that you give me that helps light this world

          Without any living memories, tell me where is it found?

The peace and security we create for each other

          Tell me how will it be when we both are gone?

Always together through death into an unimaginable future

          Clinging to each other as we bob towards the unavoidable abyss

Yet we choose to live our lives in love and uncertainty, but not in fear

          The irrational choice of the rational facing this vast unknown

There is no armor but our love, in this long and hopeless struggle

          Our only hope springs from the light we radiate from within

And as we slip away and our hands grow cool though we are touching still

          We can no longer plan for the comfort of each other

Always together, but where were you those first 14 billion years?

          And I fear that you will leave me once again for an even longer time

Don't Die In Spring

Don’t let go of me until sometime in that darkened end of November

There’s far too much light out here for me in March even if it is still snowing

Let them take you away when the sun is pallid and the days grow ever shorter

Don’t even try to push me aside when the wet snows nurture our new grass

I’ll gladly go when the ground is all brown and frozen and everything else is dead

Who could take off when the crocuses are just starting to peek out?

I’ll be ready to leave just as the lakes are freezing gray in that flat December light

I want you to be there listening when the redwing blackbirds return to fill the brush

Don’t die in the Spring when your sap is just rising after a long winter’s stillness

Wait until autumn shuts everything down into a depressed and muffled dimness

Stay with me as the streams throw off their ice and the aspen buds grow fat

Slip away quietly beneath heavy covers during some long, cold winter’s night

You cant leave just when the grebes, geese, ducks and mergansers are returning

Say goodbye when your garden is skeletal and the icy fog settles in before the snows

Why survive the long winter just to wither when at last the good light returns?

Don’t let go until the cold and dark infinitely lengthen both of our fleeing shadows

You simply can’t turn away from the fully-refreshed beauty of early May

We’ll lay you down during one of those savage early winter blizzards

We won’t let you go when the bass are bedding out on the pond

Wait for that dark and somber time before you decide upon your last move

Don’t leave me to futilely struggle against the rising tide of spring, in sadness over you

Let me walk dark streets alone during the time when grief and depression come naturally

Don’t die in the spring when the garden is calling out for your touch

I would rather think of you still hard at work, helping to push up our new bulbs