Love's Compass Rose

Love's Compass Rose ( Valentine Poem 2018) From the East we set out, Gathering steam; A rising sun ignites The birth of the dream, Celestial fire lights The path of youthful love, Finding its way upon The blinding heights Of Spring's unbounded passions. Heedless we, by days and nights Of Destiny or Destination. Then moved by Nature's own determination, To the South we turned Our yet-young steps, Down to where the long Summer burned And bloomed, and its tendrils crept Alongside all the way, And sometimes caught And slowed our tread - Yet still we strode, all down the day Arm weaved in arm We held each other sway Until the Summer gave us all Her best. And then we turned us to the West; Where now we wend our careful way Through the land of gold and red Where the taste of cold hangs in the day And what is said and left unsaid Colors all the cooling air And draws us nearer, step by step To the silent North As it paints the frostlines in our hair. Now I would not wish to be a boy again; Thou art now to me more passing fair Then thou wert to me before, and so... In the end it's to the North we go, Up high above, to the silent land Where the diamonds of the sky shine true Where together we shall stop and stand Thee with me, and I with you And review all things which we have done, And call it good, as the night comes down To wrap us in its starry arms. And in this end we will have won The rewards of patient labor. The Winter of the North will welcome us at last As the present is the only child of the past So goes the Circle, 'round and 'round. We go around Love's Compass Rose, With some things lost, and others found, Wondering at the things we chose To keep or cast aside. And when it's done and the time is spent If it was well done, there may be more, There may be more betide; We may be given to go 'round again, To meet my Joy, my Wife, my Pride - Somewhere South of Seventeen.