{Imagined as a letter or the thoughts of a woman missing her husband, who was a sailor in about the 1940s. I just wrote this one last night. Comments appreciated.}
My Love...
Vintage lace curtains sway
with all the fears I keep at bay.
My love, where are you?
Are you near? Are you afar?
And when will you be home for good?
Wait for me, wait for me,
he says, and I – I try, I try, I try.
Write me a letter and tell me, my love,
will you come home –
will you be home for Christmas?
May I tell the children
their father will be coming home?
Oh my love, if you ask how I’ve been
while you’re away…
I have been as the sea
that you sail in a storm:
restless and weary, and constantly surging.
My pillow tastes of the salty waves
which bear my love to distant lands.
Oh my love, return to me!
return to me!
And if you do…
I’ll make a pot for two, and hold your roughened hand,
and you shall tell of ships, and I shall tell of land.
And talk will be as food
for I love you.
I linger in the room, over pictures,
over memories….
And all the sad poetry I’ve read
I now regret:
for it teases me with sugar-tasting sorrow;
alabaster brows of melancholy remembrance –
remember no more! remember no more!
The waves must have their sea
and I must have you to me.
Yet when my hope has failed me,
I think of you, strong and true, pressing through –
hold on for me! my love, hold on!
Grasp my love and keep it near,
near as your heart, and nearer still:
For I am with you, and you are with me
and soon we shall be free.
My Love...
Vintage lace curtains sway
with all the fears I keep at bay.
My love, where are you?
Are you near? Are you afar?
And when will you be home for good?
Wait for me, wait for me,
he says, and I – I try, I try, I try.
Write me a letter and tell me, my love,
will you come home –
will you be home for Christmas?
May I tell the children
their father will be coming home?
Oh my love, if you ask how I’ve been
while you’re away…
I have been as the sea
that you sail in a storm:
restless and weary, and constantly surging.
My pillow tastes of the salty waves
which bear my love to distant lands.
Oh my love, return to me!
return to me!
And if you do…
I’ll make a pot for two, and hold your roughened hand,
and you shall tell of ships, and I shall tell of land.
And talk will be as food
for I love you.
I linger in the room, over pictures,
over memories….
And all the sad poetry I’ve read
I now regret:
for it teases me with sugar-tasting sorrow;
alabaster brows of melancholy remembrance –
remember no more! remember no more!
The waves must have their sea
and I must have you to me.
Yet when my hope has failed me,
I think of you, strong and true, pressing through –
hold on for me! my love, hold on!
Grasp my love and keep it near,
near as your heart, and nearer still:
For I am with you, and you are with me
and soon we shall be free.