Love's Colours

I lived my life in black and white,

And many shades of grey.

An existence of tepid austerity.

No soaring highs,

No crushing lows,

Its utter banality,

Simmering just beneath the surface,

Covered only by a thin layer.

of safety in mediocrity.

You came into my life,

A whirlwind of a thousand colours.

In an instant, everything changed.

So vivid,

So bright,

It intoxicated and terrified me.

My eyes burned from the heat,

And my heart raced.

The tears of being overcome,

Dried as I took it in,

Slowly absorbing life’s new promise,

Passionate highs,

Warm comfort,

A world of boundless possibilities,

That starts in your eyes,

And bears fruit in your arms.

Yet as our nights creep slowly,

Toward the overtaking of our days.

A tiny corner of my heart tastes fear.

Fleeting,

Irrational,

But ever-present behind the scenes,

that your colours at once will be no more,

Leaving me with black and white,

Again.

*********************************************

This poem is about a strange place I find myself in at 50. Life is good. No, life is great. The love of my life came back to me 8 years ago and we’re happily married and love and laugh every day. We feel very much like silly teenagers with boundless energy and maybe not quite enough common sense.

But, somehow, something about being an entire half a century old makes it very clear that it’s very likely we (me at 50 and him at 51) have more years behind us than ahead of us. This knowledge is ever more punctuated by the loss of several of our contemporaries over the years. Some slightly older, some slightly younger, many exactly our age, all old school chums that were taken way too soon. With all that comes a fear, not one I dwell on, but it’s there, and it creeps in during my quiet moments, of having to someday face the loss of my love and to return to life without him. It’s not something people really talk about, but I’m positive I’m not the only one who has had or who has that fear somewhere inside. Anyway, that’s life at 50 for ya.

**Originally published on Medium