Love Ever Afloat
by Odin Roark

How simple the beginnings
A kiss goodnight
The child’s forehead
Time’s remembered start
Each of us
Having to stumble about
Knowing not the price of this conundrum
Called affection

Later

Reality’s timetable
Delivers first tide
That rush of confusion
Heart and mind’s first jolt
The flooding of a formerly
Dry-sand shore
Where only dreaming heretofore
Brought excitement of folding waves

Thus

One’s tempest in waiting
The calendar’s inevitable ebb
One’s first impression of passion’s energy
Discovering submergence back to fathomless darkness
Is to provide quiet contemplation

Yet

So many
Prisoners of impulsive reaction
Ignore the past
Present
And precious future
Remain in their virgin vortex
Convulsing with youthful hormones
Only wanting to be there
In that place where
Devotion is safe
Unaware infatuation needs
Left behind
Tenders submission
To what one learns
Is Love

Yes

The tide inevitably returns
Carrying with it yesterday’s flotsam of experience
One’s new flotation of tempered wisdom
Allowing understood equation
Intellect, experience and passion
Equaling One

Such…

Rekindles remembrance of that kiss on the forehead
That first glimpse of unrequited love
Making clear beginnings must be just that
The current but started
The under and about

The start of permanence
Like a bobbing message-bottle atop a wave
Struggling within the grasp of life’s weed and bloom
Finding the shore
Its transparent container
A letter often imagined
Much remembered

Love ever afloat

Life’s often endless journey