love words weekend

One Love Photo

This is hard to say
Simply, because the words
Have grown so old together:
Lips and eyes and tears,
Touch and fingers
And love, out of love's language,
Are hard and smooth as stones
Laid bare in a streambed,
Not failing or fading
Like the halting speech of the body
Which will turn too suddenly
To ominous silence,
But like your lips and mine
Slow to separate, our fingers
Reluctant to come apart,
Our eyes and their slow tears
Reviving like these words
Springing to life again
And again, taken to heart,
To touch, love to begin.

David Wagoner