above everything under heaven. His living
breathing link to the heart of love,
he would never think to jettison the weight,
even when her demands for more of him
became impossible. He would sink
to the bottom of the ocean
before parting with her—and made sure
she knew it.
When the trouble hit, they were found
bailing, bailing together—
against all the odds,
surviving the storm that took out,
divided others.
There are storms. We survive with the help of great love and growing commitment to the cause of the life within us, a life that’s often made up of the people closest to us, the ones we tend to take for granted, consider jettisoning, when the storms hit hard. It’s then (now?) we need grow strong, discover who we are to each other.
This poem appears in my book on the spiritual disciplines that often serve to see us through the storms of life, to hold us together when we are sorely falling apart, or so it would seem. The book is called “Longings of the Soul, a poetic response.”