The Space Between Heartbeats

I loved you first in simple ways,

A glance,

a smile,

a passing word.


Like hearing distant music drift
Before the melody is heard.

Then slowly every ordinary thing
Began to carry traces of you:


The morning light across the floor,


The endless sky's untroubled blue.

Now in the space between heartbeats,


Where silence gently comes to rest,


I feel your presence like a prayer
Held safely in my chest.

And if tomorrow changed the world,


And every certainty took flight,


I'd still know home is where you are,


My compass through the longest night.