“Poem Of My Husband”…..Happy Valentine’s Day~!

Still National Haiku Month. Maybe a haiku below…
–
Pale crescent moon

Sky colored lavender

Nothing more to wish.

–
And just because it’s Valentine’s Day, a day of love and devotion, I post something from the great 8th century Japanese document, the Man’yoshu. The top poem is from this document. The bottom poem is my own. It was common then to layer poems in this way, rather a ‘call’ and ‘answer’. (with a little revision)
–
Thick and fast stream my thoughts of you
Like the layers
Of endlessly falling snow
Upon the cedars.
“Come to me at night, my woman.”

–

Come to me

If only in my dreams

Where my head rests upon my arm

And not yours–

Let this veiled moon

Above and these dark, brooding pines below

Be witness to our love, my man.”
–
Lady Nyo

–

POEM OF MY HUSBAND

“You’re all I have”

Heard in the dark

Heart almost stopping

In an inattentive breast.

–

I dare not look at him

Too bald a sentiment

And too true to bear

A light, comforting answer.

–

What would occasion such words,

Such a piteous sentiment?

–

When one has lived

Within eadh others hours, days, years,

The fabric of its making

Can be frayed.

The warp and weave, the very thread

That appears as if out of air

(and it does)

becomes substantial.

It covers and clothes more than the body

and the life blood of sentiment,

Love-

Becomes the river within, unending,

Even transcending the pulse of life.

–

“You’re all I have,”

A whispered refrain

Echoing in the heart

And burrowing deep.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2013

Lady Nyo