Love Story Series

 Neil Creighton and Dianna

 

 

By Neil Creighton

Love Poems for Dianna

Diana and I met in September, 1972.

She lived in a house with two University friends. She had just turned 21, so they were giving her a party. I still have a clear recollection of seeing her. She was stunningly beautiful, dressed all in white with a gorgeous head of silken, jet black hair hanging almost to her waist. Soon I found out that we had much in common. Shortly after that I realized that she had the most wonderful character. In less than two months I knew that I could live happily with her for the rest of my days.

By some miracle, she agreed and we were married on May 19th, 1973. We have four children and six grandchildren. Our love and our enjoyment of each other has increased through the years and the complications and challenges that life inevitably brings have only served to strengthen our love.

I am a most fortunate man. These are poems I wrote for Diana, all are from my book, Awakenings.
 

 

Earth Music

An intricate, richly sensual tune
this tactile, perfumed earth sings
and to the song of sun, sea and moon
all creation its own harmony brings.
The lover sun holds earth in his arms,
the insatiable sea caresses the shore,
the night is besotted by the moon’s charms
and everywhere is the cry for more.
Flowers willingly open for honey bees,
clouds are the vaporous water’s embrace,
and with earth and sea the insistent breeze
communes as if face to face.

Thus every creature is entranced
by the music that around them flows
and caught up in this harmony dance
patterns each intuitively knows.
All these are creatures of the dust
caught in earth’s scent and song,
singing and dancing in the way they must
patterns of desire to which they belong.
Whether in stealth, danger or death,
in grace, beauty or fluttering need,
in savagery or urgent stress,
all play in earth’s rich symphony of seed.

So you and I, who smell the perfumed air,
are caught and enfolded by this song
and to its great pattern and desire
our lives in close union belong.
The sounds ringing with rich complexity
melody upon melody entwine,
and tenderness, love and fidelity
in its high, clear, pure notes shine.
O my love, I in this great world stand
surrounded by rich music of life,
sustained in spirit, heart, mind and hand
by you – my partner, my joy, my wife.
 

 

River.

The current sweeps us along,
past laugh and splash of free running water,
over falls that shout and plunge,
alongside the red poppy fields,
under green pendant willows,
around curving bends and lazy meander
towards, in the distance,
the still dark sea.

Long ago there was a morning
filled with sunshine and bird song.
Somehow, wonderfully, you passed by.
I reached out, felt your hand and it closed on mine.
Why? The body’s desire?
The mind’s fear of loneliness?
A beauty of need, to love and be loved?
Who can know, but every day
sunlight caressed the waves
and every night the current filled
with silken sheen from moon and star.

We are closer now to the rumbling confluence
where river protests to the sea.
Does that matter?
Long ago our deep union consumed me,
took me way out
beyond sheltered cove or stagnant stillness,
deep, deep into a trackless wonder,
into mighty waves of beauty and joy,
deep troughs of compassion
for heartache and pain,
a pure, sublime tide far beyond self.

There I have richly dwelt.
There, in wonder and surrender,
I have willingly sunk and drowned.
 

 

 

 

This Passing Day.

It seems to me that the brittle-bright morning
when we first loved
was a glistening shimmer of dew drop.
All the world's wealth was ours.
Time seemed held in fragile crystal stop.

Now it is late afternoon.
The sky is clear and the sinking sun
more intensely beautiful than it was long ago.
Who can know if night will suddenly fall
or day stretch on past midnight
in muted, dimming, surreal twilight.

No matter. Each transient moment is rich with joy
and passing time has been our strange friend,
gifting us a plaited golden cord that twists and entwines,
tying us to each other and to the present,
the past and the unknowable future.

So come, take my hand.
That fragile morning is long gone.
Evening must fall but the stars promise light.
We have lived and loved together,
shared in glory throughout the long passing day.
Is this not enough?
It must be enough.

It is much more than enough.

 

I know

you are a gift from God
and you were wondrous fair:
your lovely eyes,
your tender lips,
your silken cascade of coal black hair.

To your soft touch the waves lap close
then tumble over my head.
In ecstatic joy
and deep embrace
you take me to your bed.

My greatest joy is beyond compare,
the cord which does most bind:
the relentless chime
of tangled time
ties me in unity to your mind.

Years have passed and lips do fade
but love has wondrously grown:
more dear to me,
still marvelously,
my gift from God alone.
 

 

 Come, Hold Me.

Come, hold me,
for the world is so mingle mixed,
so contrastingly, proportionally fixed-
pain flooded, beauty buoyant,
achingly sad, fleetingly joyous,
poignantly littered, pathos strewn,
touchingly tender, savagely hewn-
for under this blue, beauty-laden sky
we laugh, labor, mourn and sigh,
seek answers to an unknowable why,
see much to make the tender heart cry-
so hold me. Make all seem bright.
Tenderly grant me your sweet respite.
Bathe me in your wonder and light.
Momentarily wash away the night.