Sweat

Even on the days I drip with sweat
Pooling above my brows in salty lakes
Fogging my glasses, I cannot forget
How much more effort what you're doing takes.
I can't pretend my little exercise
No matter how I push myself, can be
As strenuous as that which daily lies
Upon your shoulders taking care of me.
So thank you for your every single day;
Your constant presence and your constant care;
Your love and your affection on the way;
And all the ways that you are always there
For me. I'm happy to be blessed with you
And hope that I can make you happy too.

Montana

As all ours do, my patience has an end
And yet it has not come, somehow, with you;
It has with everyone I call my friend,
So that, by now, I must expect it to.
And yet I find that nothing that you do
(No matter how annoying it might seem)
Rubs me awry sufficiently to screw
My patience from its sticking place. I scream
Internally sometimes, or in a dream,
But do not find myself inclined to say
I'm done--my patience rises as a cream
Over my frustration. Though I fray,
I have not yet unraveled. Nor shall I;
My patient love's unbounded as the sky.

Vancouver Sunset

The ocean boils out into the west
Framed by peninsulas that almost seem
Islands themselves, trapped by the mainland lest
Its ornaments be fleeting as a dream.
The mountains rear above the darkened slopes
Whose trees are shielded from the falling sun
From whom the final tendril slowly gropes
To make the sea and sky appear as one
Melted together in an orange embrace.
The ships that shadow as they cross the sky
Appear to dawdle. But their well-worn trace
Is faster than it seems. So by and by
The sunlight fades. And yet beyond False Creek
An orangeness still illuminates a peak.

Ansible

Imagine not that I am far from you
Although the memory of leaving me
Is fresher than the yet untarnished dew
That sits incipient upon the grass;
For I am always with you, inwardly.
My presence is the weight, but I the mass
Unchangeable by fickle gravity:
A constant, giving my own context to
The readings of the scale. This too shall pass.
I am of you, as you of me, and we
Are one to eyes like ours that see things true.
Be resolute and strong--think no alas
Knowing the truth: that we are not apart
As long as we are matched inside the heart.

Baggins

The hours pass into the mist and I have lost the way.
The day grows dark and threatening, and night begins to creep
Upon the edges of my eyes, and I see shadows deep
Flicker against what was the brightness of the day.
And yet as all begins to tend towards black through mottled gray--
While all kind sounds are silenced, and the mind prepares to leap
Towards danger and towards worry, and will start at every cheep--
I cannot help but think of you, and what I think you'd say
And even in my mind alone, without a hint of sound
Without the blessing of your face, or of the slightest clue
That you are anywhere near me, or know where I have strayed
Your conjured voice convinces me that somehow I am found:
That everything will be all right, and I will stumble through
Without the path, and yet with you, and therefore unafraid.

Do

Neither could alone
Do what we do together
Seeds that we have sown
Through (truly) filthy weather
Await the thaw to reap
And two hands to the scythe;
Together we must leap
And bind, and stack, and tithe.
But though the task is great
And cannot sole be done
We need not contemplate
The burden upon one
We are and will be two
To do what two should do.

Without

No day goes by
No night can end
But weary I
Think of my friend
My peer my heart
My dear my life
My other part
My love my wife.
And where is she?
Do not ask that
She is not here
So let it be
All else is flat
And gray, and drear.

Plane

We scud across the white eternal plain
Whose rolling hills soon flatten into sheets;
Or skid along a bleached and endless main
Whose edgeless quality subtly defeats
My thoughts of measurement; or slip beyond
The world of men entirely, and slide
Through space and pure imagination fond.
Wherever we may be, the joyful ride
Turns terrible as soon as we descend
For that which seemed earth, sea, or perfect blank
Will always turn upon us in the end
Swallowing us who, coating each flank
Wherever we may look, with white and white
Refusing any hope of end-or sight.

Ache

I seek her absent in the evening air
As if the fall of night should conjure her
I know beyond a doubt she is not there
And yet I find I still must wish she were
Hoping against my inner certainty,
Pretending what I wish for might be true
Despite the fact I know it cannot be.
The couch bears only one that should bear two
The meals uneaten fill the bulging fridge
The hours lengthen when no voices speak.
And still it flits about me like a midge
I cannot see nor squash: the little squeak
Of unwarranted hope that will not die
Giving my longing soul the constant lie.

Missing

Some pains cannot be simply thought away
They linger in the soul, ready to strike
At little triggers that were once OK,
Especially the things you used to like--
A certain song, played at a certain time;
Something you used to stumble on, but can't;
A sound of feet; a high pitched ringing chime--
And all of them now feel a little scant,
Unfinished, like a frame without a door
Begging to be closed in winter. Now
These little moments shake you to the core
And there's no easy fix. If I knew how,
Be sure I'd share, but I can do no more
For you than for myself, which makes it less
Because I cannot offer you redress.