Wrote this for a upcoming 40years anniversary Vow renewal. Looking for thoughts. I'm not a poet, But do write loves notes to her.
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Eternal Voyage
Eighteen I was a hull without harbor,
chasing salt-spray and the raw thrill of sun.
I sensed her somewhere past the curve of the world—
a warmth before her name,
an echo of her soul.
One night she walked in
and the universe, holding its breath for decades, exhaled.
She moved with a bouncing grace,
happiness pouring like molten joy.
Her green eyes carried in them an old knowing;
her auburn hair seized the light,
radiating a fire that turned the room to gold.
One kiss and I was lost—
before I understood the coming storm…
like a needle drawn to a magnet.
Love keeps no chart.
It is vast as the sea…
the fire of the storm…
and the heavy fumble of the dark.
It carries with it a debt…
paid only by grace…
in seasons we found each other
and seasons we lost our way.
Slowed as sails hanging dead…
on an unwrinkled, motionless sea…
waiting for the wind.
Marriage doesn’t live in the grand winds…
it lives in the quiet currents that carry us.
Built from ten thousand quiet choosings…
the silent decision
to stay at the helm
when the horizon lies empty.
We were built not by the luck of the weather,
but by the careful trimming of sails,
catching the smallest breath of grace
to carry us home.
Forty years.
Forty years watching her love brim like an unbound tide.
She never learned to hold back;
generosity is native to her soul.
Even now
I anchor in the doorway
just to watch her cross a room,
carrying the weight of a hundred gales
as if they were morning mist.
After all these winters
I am still…
quietly, completely…
undone by her.
This love is older than our names.
We didn’t stumble upon each other…
we are one long remembering.
We entered this life already reaching across the dark
toward a touch we had mastered long before.
We did not learn each other;
we simply remembered.
My promise…
in every season still to come:
I will take the helm again each morning,
steer through whatever weather arrives,
and love you still.
…and when this voyage ends—
when we have spent the last coin of our shared light—
I will search for you in the eternal ocean
and find you by the frequency of your soul.
I will know you instantly…
recognizing you the way the tide recognizes the moon—
something I never truly forgot.
And when we reach the edge of this life,
I will love you again.