Love in Old Age

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
I love you when together we start to write
for although you’re sometimes out of sight,
you’re never out of mind. So many days

we’ve spent sitting together at keyboards, tapping
at computer keys. Is this the way to please
each other, a choosing of words, a squeeze
of meaning into a smaller space, with overlapping

metaphors and images improved in ways
we never would have dreamed of? Each
to his or her own, we say. Yet we reach
out to each other over time and space,

not joined at hip or lip, but with energy and zest,
sailing similar seas, and trying our very best.

Commentary:

A Golden Oldie, the poem more than the painting. Moo is more up to date than me. He also thinks my beloved and I sit side by side, or at opposite sides of the table, gazing at each other, but not saying much. Hence his choice of cartoon – The Sound of Silence.

“Each to his or her own, we say. Yet we reach out to each other over time and space.” Sometimes silently, often with words. Silence is best – because as my hearing goes, what I hear is a mumble – like the rumble of the old Mumbles Railway – does anybody else remember that? The result of the overheard mumble is an inelegant ‘Eh?’ Too many ‘ehs’ spoil the silence. Don’t they, eh? What’s that you say, eh?

So, I am now having great fun reading a new word a day in Welsh. What a joy to pursue the language that was forbidden when I was a boy. I don’t have anyone to talk to, but that is beside the point. Reading, remembering, the old place names still there at the tip of the tongue – Brynhyfryd, Rhosili, Pwll Ddu. Each name brings with it a visual memory, usually silent, but sometimes filled with the cries of sea-gulls and the growling of corgis defending their territories. Whatever – what joy!