The time is right, it is the season
You plant a row of seeds, press lightly
with fingertips like kissing children at bedtime

It takes time, this you know, this you’ve been told
Time to nourish, tilting a water can just so, as hungry dirt
and fetal roots suck gently down your tender care

Time to wonder at the magic dance of sunshine and moon delight
as on a given morning there are tiny green shoots, reaching up towards you

Each morning, another amazement as these fragile shafts rise
becoming sturdy stems gifting you with fledgling buds

It takes time, so you know, so you’ve been told
so you wait, patiently yet eagerly
until all so sweetly blossoms—a beauty smiling up at you
Oh, how delirious the moment!
Oh, how breath stopping, you gasp, your heart races
as eyes burst with a suddenness of delight,
you bend and are caressed by the gracious kiss
of a luscious petal upon your trembling lips
you tingle within an embrace of fragrant scent

As you so dreamed upon first planting, you two are now one
You share whispering coupling words, “I’m yours. Only yours!”
You breathe together, a first moment of adoration, fiery sparks
flying heedlessly upon your rapturous words
“ I love you, oh so much.” And “Thank you for being you!”

Ah, my sweetheart, as such with every season and in my heart
at the sunrise and moonset of each day
so I suffer this joyful failure of loving you, my Beloved.
For I have not sufficient words, so I regret, not at this moment, not
at any moment, that justly convey
my heartfelt gratitude and the never-ending aching desire that humbles me
like the embrace of a flower in bloom as I open to hold
you in my arms, my Beloved.
There are no songs, so I ache, that I can sing that
rightly and richly convey the sighful sweetness
of my being one with you within our coupled flowering

Though words fail me, my sweetheart, here as I struggle to write
with my heart and sing with my soul celebrating all you
have graciously shared and given to me, I offer you this day, this moment, all
that I am to be born with you anew in everlasting embrace, planting today
as you did that first day long ago your seed into my heart now
my seed into your heart so that we may be Beloveds, blossoming
throughout time-unending.

May our earthly, time-bound love nurture the seeding
of our coupled heart and soul
as the seasons turn and we blossom into
the everlasting Love that nurtures all Beloveds.

________________________________________

Written in honor of and with deepest affection for my beloved friends,
William and Barbara Motlong, and Vic Straw and Katherine Koenig,
read at the celebration of their 50th and 25th wedding anniversaries, respectively.

Frank Kroncke
Viroqua, WI
June 9, 2013