To Gil with Love on Our Anniversary by Carolee Ross-Golpe

Fifteen  years ago, I thought

That life would always be

Memories and longing

And anguished words,

An empty bed

And a life spent in solitude.

A life spent wearing the armor

Of a self-actualized woman;

Independent, feisty,

One with many interests

And loving friends

With a house full of animals

And plants and books and music.

I was so together

Everyone said;

I had my work,

I could summon up images

And play the sorceress,

Commanding my computer

And my legion of cameras

To obey my bidding.

Creating,

Fashioning words out of stars

Walking on the wings of the wind

Grasping at the sands of time

Dancing with ghosts

And tarnished dreams.

Sixteen years ago

I really didn’t want to meet you;

I didn’t need a man

To fill my arms and my soul.

I was safe, immured in my woodsy castle

No love could pierce this armored shell

fashioned out of brittle pieces of my heart;

Constructed with tears and sighs

And laden with dollops of sarcasm.

Occasionally I glanced at old photos

Tattered and fading;

Of myself in love, of myself in pain

Of myself in loss

Of myself with the smile of a happy clown.

And swore that no more

Distantly disturbing faces

Would clutter my study and my life.

And swore that no allegiance

Would tie my wings

And singe my soul

And pull me back to grief.

So I tended my garden

And wrote my stories

And missed my Papa

And watched old films

And read until I’d vicariously experienced

Every  emotion

My eyes cried tears

My heart took in strays.

But then the miracle happened

The kind I’d always called trite

I gathered whatever courage

That was left inside my soul

And answered a short bleep in space

After listening to stringent warnings about

That sort of folly.

You were an Aquarian with a Cancer Moon you said;

So was I --

how could another mortal bear such a fate?

You’d been to Nam

while I picketed and protested.

We’d both been married to possessive, critical people

For way too many years --

And then you told me you were a strange mix;

Half Latino, half Slavic

But as serendity would have it -- so was I.

After two months of writing

Lots of E-mail notes,
This wounded woman went forth,
Mentally battered
and emotionally bruised

To meet you;
My twin, my friend, my lover,
The swan I was sure had died years ago,
The Man at the Last Chance Saloon.

And there began a fairy tale

In this epoch of cynism
A slightly scarred Cinderella
And a sweet introverted Prince,
Friends throughout the ages,
Twins who were created
at the same cosmic moment in time
When suddenly the vortex pulled us apart
to hurl through the Universe, forever
Or so I thought.

It was you, dear Gil,

whose dark eyes held mystery
whose touch was new, yet dear,
familiar yet intense;
whose gentle voice whispered songs of the ages
whose face I knew in a glance,
whose soul was the other half of mine.