True Love

Now this is love—
Security, warmth, comfort, rejuvenation
The utmost in charity,
It takes my time but returns so much more,
With no suggestion of disparity.
Like a toothbrush, it is only mine.
No need to share it, and I feel just fine.

Reliable when I’m sick.
Respite from my trials, escape from all my woes.
It envelops me, wraps its pure white arms around me,
Inspires me to climb higher to an island in the midst of chaos.

Take it at face value, exactly what it seems.
Doesn’t need to impress anyone or put on haughty airs.
Just relax my weary muscles and shelter all my dreams
While I kick off my shoes and drop my heavy cares.

I cry on its shoulder, bury my face in its tender arm.
Sometimes in anger I scream at its face
But undaunted, forgiving, it hears out my case.

Inviting, enticing, so hard to pull away
When the short moment of night ends and thus begins a new day.
Parting is grueling when I leave on a journey.
Anxious for our reunion, for my love I have been yearning.
Nothing has changed, no matter how long the separation
I come home to all that I’ve hoped for, dreamed of and wanted—
Ah, yes, my own, glorious bed!

To some this may be pathetic—
A shameless display of affection for an inanimate object,
Incapable of returning to me in eloquent rhetoric.
But I hold my case as one that will persist through time,
For even when I share it, my bed will be more sublime.

April Murdock
2.9.03