Second Honeymoon -- Tony Scanlon

Guest poem sent in by William Grey

(Poem #1619) Second Honeymoon The blue that startled his heart has faded: blue-grey like denim now her eyes by candlelight across the table -- and he knows the fingerprints of time are on him, too, though candle's bloom is less truthful than the unrelenting sun. He knows them both to be weathered in the cascade of the years, beyond redress -- still, his hand which has crept without volition over the linen to clasp hers, touches, not the flesh time mars, but the undimmed radiance of her love, pulsing stronger for the passage of the years since first he touched her. His hand tightens over hers in that familiar reflex which has saved him, times beyond remembering, from drowning. -- Tony Scanlon

With the romantic anniversary of Valentine's Day approaching, here's a romantic
poem from Tony Scanlon. A romantic poem for the over-50s.  What's moving in the
poem is the tribute it pays the durability and depth of a love beyond the
ephemeral and passionate urgency of youth -- though that's also pretty good!

I don't have any biographical information about the poet. The poem is a
singleton in an anthology of Australian verse.

William Grey