I have feared love

With all its hidden demands
With its misty promises and drying skin
With its moist eyes and my own deepest concern

That once I settled on one,

I might finally find the other destined for me.

I feared love because I may have waited too long

And kept intact the memory of too much pain

at its passing.

Finally I have lived long enough to know that such fear

Is groundless, pale, passionless compared to the fear

Of never having known love at all.

That is fear, indeed, to wake up each morning

without anyone

To share the day or a cup of coffee (or is it

Sanka now, love?)

To settle into the darkest night without cuddling or caring

Or knowing that to no one I am worth life itself. And more.

I watched my father die and wondered what he shared

with my mother,

Wondered how two so often silent and distant could

endure fifty years.

Now I know, because my own life has crossed boundaries

that are never crossed again.

To have a child with one, and then another, to be together

When presidents die or friends are taken prematurely,

To share a thousand laughs and tears, ten thousand meals,
To say hello and goodbue, good night and good morning

beyond all counting or remembrance,

To see each other through trajedy and desperation, to
wonder what life

means and feel a tusting form next to you,

Or hear a child's voice echoing over a summer afternoon,
To know that weeks soon pass like months,

and months years,

To know that yesterday will not return and tomorrow

is not forever.

It is not love I now fear, but a life without it,

and every breath
I breathe from this moment will hold it in mind and heart,

In the very depths of my loneliness and every least

dream I still have to share.

More than anything else, I want to hold you in my arms,

gently,
Beyond sex and security, prestige and triumph,

To say once and for all, "I love you," and mean it from the

top of my head to the depths of my soul.

This is the love that casts out fear, that makes life

worth living,

That takes a man and woman on the earth and lifts them

finally above every power or pain that

could wound them.

I have seen so many sights, heard so many words,

but none as beautiful

As the sight and sound of a man and woman

of mature years,
Who say with their every act, their eyes and all their being:

"I love you!"

by James Kavanaugh -- from Mystic Fire