Thirty-Five Years Later

Thirty-five years ago today Janet and I started on a journey together. Along the way I have learned some very important things like two people can become one and still remain individuals and when you love someone you do not see them with your eyes you see them with your heart.

We have lived and loved together
Through many changing years;
We have shared each other’s gladness
And wept each other’s tears;
I have known ne’er a sorrow
That was long unsoothed by thee;
For thy smiles can make a summer
Where darkness else would be.

Like the leaves that fall around us
In autumn’s fading hours,
Are the traitor’s smiles, that darken
When the cloud of sorrow lowers;
And though many such we’ve known love,
Too prone, alas, to range,
We both can speak of one love
Which time can never change.

We have lived and loved together
Thought many changing years,
We have shared each other’s gladness
And wept each other’s tears.
And let us hope the future,
As the past has been will be;
I will share with thee my sorrows,
And thou thy joys with me.
                                      --Charles Jefferys

Unlike most couples, Janet and I do not have a song but we do have a poem.

I carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
                                                                       --e e cummings

ADDENDUM for Evalona most everyone else has heard the story:

Janet and I were into sailing from shortly after we married until her first stroke in 1986. When you sail Galveston Bay during the summer you learn that when high pressure is centered near the coast your wind is going to die between 10am and 11:30am. Some days the Bay is as flat as glass until the wind begins to pick back up after 4pm or so in the early evening. You have three choices; one you can start the engine (but I had a hard fast rule, no engine past Channel Marker 2 so that was out); two you could keep the sails up and scour the surface of the water for ripples that would indicate an air movement you might be able to pick up; or three, our preference, you could get out real early and enjoy a nice sail before finding an anchorage to wait it out.

One such weekend we had made it to our favorite anchorage inside the hook on the north end of Redfish Island. On these ocassions I would put up the cockpit awning and Janet would fix snacks or lunch depending upon the time. This was always a calm and pleasant time to share being together. We would listen to music, or most likely just talk or sometimes we read poetry. On this particular weekend we were hitting the poetry books and I read a poem that I honestly do not ever remember having read before, I Carry Your Heart With Me. Before it was over both Janet and I knew that we had a poem. I can always bring it out for anniversaries or just when the blahs hit and it always gets us to where we are supposed to be.

That is why I say that it is serendipitous that you would chose that particular poem to share on the Photograph Schoolhouse forum. I am pleased to know that others are as deeply affected by Cumming’s work. BTW: another that I recommend is Somewhere I have Never Traveled.