This is your poem

This is your poem,
I have nothing else to give you.

And maybe some day someone will
Wonder who you were,
That a base and homely poet
Sang your beauty to the sky
And grabbed this burning sphere
To place it on a pedestal.

And I never asked you
To love me
But only accept me
With the grace
That frames every line
Of your face
From which I have fallen
So many times.

And so this will be your poem,
The poem that describes
In the richest, pulpiest terms
The sapphire jewel that burns
Behind your eyes,
And your laugh which, it would seem,
Is a song heard once
In a half-remembered dream.

You are the first warm day of Spring
And the last warm day of Autumn.

You are the cool mountain breeze
That brushes the cheek
As it comes winding

Down through the trees,
Along a meandering creek
Through the green valley bottom.

And your face
Is the warm breath of the morning sun
Carving a perfect moment of fire
In the diamond surface of the day.

And this is the poem that tells you
Arise! O, Sun,
For this is light and you are its champion.
Your arising to be a rare miracle
Like the shifting of the tides,
Or the opening of a petal
Along whose lip runs
One perfect drop
Of dew
- You.

And your eyes are two cathedral windows
Stretching high to grab the greater Glory
And they stand as stained glass,
Coloring and reshaping all that pass through them
Into beautiful new patterns
Playing softly on my skin.

I can only drop hints, and I only drop hints
On your pillow like hotel mints.

So I wrote you a poem -
To tell you that your presence in a room
Leaves me twisted and tongue-tied
My breath caught somewhere between my chest
And my voice
Until all I can do is nod.

And these words are scratches,
Nothing more than lines
From a pen.

Or maybe they will work together to be
A monument to eternal beauty.
And maybe someday in the far future
When all we are
And all we have ever been
Will be as lost and forgotten
As that half-buried dream,
There will be a yellow scrap of paper
Floating on the half-breath of evening,
Over scratched streets paved with gravestones,
And in a long-dead language
There will be these words:

"This is your poem,
I have nothing else to give you,
Certainly nothing as great as the gift
I receive
Every time you turn your smile to me."

So please take this poem
For you have written it
Through my pen,
In that moment when
My heart stopped beating
And you called my name to me.