Joanna Poem by Michael Timothy Rose

All that you mean to me
Shows as a sweeping wind
Lifting me away from myself:
My mouth moves to breathe words
That will transcend the quiver of introversion set against my lips
Pushed to utter three words…
By the strength of my heart
Beating to let you know
In summer’s end,
A hope survives. My hope survives.
As an illusion, maybe-
But as an illumination, still
Held tightly within me as a caged animal
Motionless in captivity,
But raging within;
And just praying,
Just helplessly and desperately reaching
For all light in the tunnel’s end,
All colors in the ray of this rainbow.
And it is, for me, the reflecting radiance
In the passion and fire of your eyes-
Limitless in burning, endless
As the sun,
And immeasurable to it,
The portrait of you painted
So flawlessly
With the prowess
Of the thousand most exceptional craftsmen of our histories
Here and afar, or from another world apart,
All of them, still, no more
Than even a candle to you.
You sweep me off my feet…
Love,
On my back,
Grass about my entire body,
just laying around me,
inches high on my body’s sides,
moist in the humid air,
Just bathing beside me
in the rush of the crisp, yellow moonlight
and in it’s blue shadow;
I lay there just as well
Deep in thought,
Looking for you, longing for you…,
the undying wind
that has brought my back
to the floor.
And it is love…
And I love you.
And to live another breath
Without the presence of you in it,
Would threaten plans, my future is unsure of,
Because of all uncertain in life,
Love shows its colors -all-
In the reflection of you. You are a rainbow…
of what seems endless
in color and life and passion and love and beauty,
Sketched too delicately within me, and in an ink that is too bold to erase or forget.
Without you,
Life would be a colorless ash-
My love,
Your very breath brings to me:
The meaning in all that is beautiful,
The capability for me to see and to feel it.
I am always craving that tenderness of each kiss that has passed between us
Because each one is a moment of precious love
Fleeting from my memory as the impressions
Of your lips tender touch to mine
fades, as every kiss is evanescent and frail,
As the elusion of time from the present.
Yet whenever that soft and gentle kiss remains,
The capacity of it to demonstrate all the love
That will not fade,
nor be persuaded to-
Still exists! In the clouds and in the stars and in our hearts!
Because I still love you Joanna,
Not plainly,
not simply,
Just honestly, just honestly,
Just honestly,
I do.