And at last, by the fire,
whenever I look up,
there you are;
and whenever you look at me,
there I remain.
Why, you had always haunted me,
as I feared;
but now, whenever I reach for you,
you are near
and the vision, once distant,
is now flesh and warmth,
and the hearth contains the heart at last.
I shall do one thing in my life
one thing certain:
to love you,
to cherish you,
to keep wanting you
till my days are done.
Beneath the veil of memory,
your image moves,
tender, radiant,
like sunlight rippling on river ice,
and I, in the pleasures of imagination,
follow every gleam of you,
now mirrored in reality.
We walk among the olive bushes,
hands brushing leaves,
picking figs and moments alike,
the river murmurs beside us,
and I catch trout as laughter rises,
and the world, once gray and distant,
now sings with wonder.
I have danced at your skittish heels,
my beautiful, my beloved,
through many a shadowed mile,
and many a long, lonely day;
and now it is hard,
hard to believe
how full, how radiant,
this shared world has become.
A sigh rises, long and impassioned,
from the whispering hills,
from the murmuring river,
yet it is desire fulfilled,
selfish, exquisite,
which shapes and reshapes
our waking hearts,
glows, freshens, fires
a cycle of presence,
a cycle of joy,
born of your coming,
crafted by our love,
and never to fade.
A thought of you comes,
like a vision from heaven,
and imagination trembles,
but now in delight,
for the thief of my heart
has returned,
and the world is ours to wander
among olives, rivers, and sunlit days.