A Love Poem Poem by Laurence Overmire

I've never been much for writing
Love poems.
Words in that time-told tradition
Carry such impossible expectation,
How to find a way to say
Without sounding "sappy"
Or like an unschooled boy
That feeds on daydreams
Yet has no sense of the wise heart of the
Truest love.

Romeo was a fool, you know.
It was Lear who knew the cost
Of what he'd lost.

Even I, poor beleaguered poet
Who ought to know better
Struggle to find the best
Remarkable word, but it seems truth is always
An elusive suitor, that most
Complex of human emotions
Always inexplicably out of reach.

Yet, I can speak in the simplest of
Words to make this maze of
Feeling somewhat comprehensible:

I love you beyond all measure of myself
In spite of myself
Outside of myself
Until self itself is meaningless
Without you.

You are my life and my life is you.

I commit to your spirit for all time.
Beyond all time.
If there is such a thing as
Immortality
It must live in this truest
Heart of all hearts, the love
That must endure when the
World as we know it and all
That is in it, turns to dust.

And I, unlucky in so many things
Have, in some fortunate, stumbling way
Found this, the greatest of all of Life's
Impossible loves.

To you, for you, and from you
I give, I receive, and take.
We two together, the journey joined
Today, tomorrow, and forever.

~ Laurence Overmire