Breathe Close To Me

Breathe close to me, let not your head droop nor your face grimace in fierce grief, for when I must leave, all will not leave with me, I promise.... The memories we made together will sit safe inside your mind's nest. I'll leave the photos too: I can't take them with me, so you'll have the proof we were young once, both pretty and foolish, drawn together like two bees put in a jar, buzzing round each other until their disparate sound becomes a kind of music. The photos and memories can take you back to all the places we loved in Italy and France and that windblown prehistoric Southern beach where our hearts first linked in tandem as flesh merged and the monk-like sun set slowly, silently, o'er that endless and holy ocean.... Yet they lie, those photos, static remembrances of our youth and middle years, for no canvas or brain can ever seize our love, the living thing it is, unseen but tangible as a hand, vulnerable yet enduring past anger, illness and even death... because time cannot diminish this Being born between us....