Contradiction Poem by Tony Jolley

You say: “I love you”,
And you do:
To the uttermost limits of yourself and of all eternities.

I say: “You are my world”,
And you are:
There is no horizon for me beyond you.

We say: “We are one”,
And we are:
Rossetti’s children, we neither have use for ‘I’ or ‘mine’

You say: “Distance has no dominion over us”,
And it hasn’t:
We remain 600 miles close.

I say: “You never leave me”,
And you don’t:
Your heavenly hands stay ever about my spirit.

We say we are: “Home… and home for all time”
And we are:
Safe, secure, content, in our one-up-one-down-with-a-sea-view.

Yet today …..

Yet today:
I could not touch your cheek – not even to make a fleeting moment of memory;
You could not share the deepening orisons of my eyes;
We were not free to be one for anyone;
I could not catch a plane to you – not even with ticket and passport in pocket;
You could not find my fingers upon your silent, lonely frets;
We were both ‘a la maison’, yet we neither were ‘home’.

Yet today….

Yet today:
We both knew that had we heard ‘anything’ had happened to the other
We would have moved all heavens and every Earth without a thought
To be where we know we must be.

Then why, Oh why, My Love, does ‘nothing’ keep us from ‘we’?