Second Honeymoon
The blue that startled his heart has faded:
blue-grey like denim now her eyes by candlelight
across the table -- and he knows the fingerprints
of time are on him, too, though candle's bloom
is less truthful than the unrelenting sun.
He knows them both to be weathered in the cascade
of the years, beyond redress -- still, his hand
which has crept without volition over the linen
to clasp hers, touches, not the flesh time mars,
but the undimmed radiance of her love, pulsing
stronger for the passage of the years since first
he touched her. His hand tightens over hers
in that familiar reflex which has saved him,
times beyond remembering, from drowning.
Commentary
With the romantic anniversary of Valentine’s Day approaching, here’s a romantic poem from Tony Scanlon. A romantic poem for the over-50s. What’s moving in the poem is the tribute it pays the durability and depth of a love beyond the ephemeral and passionate urgency of youth – though that’s also pretty good!
I don’t have any biographical information about the poet. The poem is a singleton in an anthology of Australian verse.
— William Grey