For Linda

My Linda, my darling wife, my soul mate...
('Soul mate' may be trite, but for us it's so right!)
I found you at mid-life -- oh, so worth the long wait.
In marriage, you have filled all my days, every night.

Warmth, beauty, love, happiness, joy - riches untold
you bestow upon me, making my life now complete.
Before there was you, my heart never felt quite whole.
As I sat lonely, beside me you came, took your seat.

To me you are the sun to drive my storm clouds away.
You are the sweetest song any songbird ever could sing,
the prettiest butterfly flitting among new flowers in May.
To rival a bell in a steeple is how you make my heart ring.

Our sweet love, white hot in its intensity and its purity,
shall endure beyond one mere lifetime upon this earth.
Our destiny is to love each other throughout eternity,
for such love is beyond measure, so great is its worth.

And, should we be reborn upon this earth, within I know
that we would reunite during that life, to marry once more,
to share another golden lifetime of a love so perfect, so
true that its fulfillment Fate would be unwilling to ignore.

Only a poor poet, I fail to convey what's here in my heart
with mere words. No poem can capture what lies within,
for without you as my wife, I'd be just an incomplete part,
an empty shell of a man...wounded, needing you to mend.

You make my life worth the living, cause my heart to soar.
Sweet Linda, I'll love you today, tomorrow…forevermore.


Harry Edward Gilleland      10.01.03