I choose you as I’ve chosen you before—
a choice that echoes down time’s mirrored line,
unbreaking, first and last, like our clasped hands,
as you led me through gossamer in white
to kneel with you outside time, inside love.
For years we have created our time-world,
and peopled it and nurtured it as best
we could; we have learned life
and death and opposition in all things.
And we have learned each other, more or less,
while you remain a mystery to me—
a depth that my own depth might never reach;
a power that is other than my own.
You are the men with sun-caught swords upraised,
the men who huddled fearful in the trench,
who trod the silent trail in dappled light,
who cracked the stones in hope and sowed the seeds,
who touched, desired, slept, prayed, wept, worked, blessed,
who stood tall, silent, through the watchful night,
who saw the stars reflected in the sea.
Father, brother, husband, son, and friend—
you hold the earth and skies within your hands.
Behind your eyes the molten worlds are shaped;
their spring is breathed from chaos-fiery night.
And while we meet mortality’s dark blows,
still we can glimpse the light that beacons home.
I choose you yet again, as when I reached
to clasp your hand and thus begin the bond
that seals our timeless, time-encircling love.
