Forever

I found these old photographs at the flea awhile back.

Or maybe they found me.

Isn't this old-timey couple darling?

So many years between our lives and theirs at the moment this picture

was taken...yet not much has changed.

People were just as playful back then! :)

But most of all, this picture comforts me

in an odd way--

to think of all the love that ever was,

and ever will exist, 

for as long as we go on.

There you were, and it was like spring

(a poem by Mary Oliver)

There you were, and it was like spring--

like the first fair water with the light on it,

   hitting the eyes. 

Why are we made the way we are made, that to love

   is to want?

Well, you are gone now, and this morning I have walked out

   to the back shore,

to the ocean which, even if we think we have measured it,

   has no final measure.

Sometimes you can see the great whales there,

   breaching and playing.

Sometimes the swans linger just long enough

   for us to be astonished.

Then they lift their wings, they become again

   a part of the untouchable clouds.