When I Say I love You

 

When I say I love you

I mean just as you are,

Promises are for the future

We never know that far.

 

When I say I love you

I can only speak for now,

Now is all I can give to you:

It’s in the now I vow.

 

Heaven knows I mean it

When I say I love you

But it’s only now I say it,

The future is always due.

 

I can make a promise

But what is a promise worth?

Many a promise is made

In merriment and mirth.

 

When times are good

And all is fair in sunshine,

Honey dew escapes the lips

And the mind is in a bind.

 

Yes, it’s in the present

When I say I love you,

So very certain in the now

What else can I do?

 

Age and illness matter not

When I say I love you,

The future I cannot factor in

I know not what is due.

 

I know I made a vow

As I was expected so to do,

I repeated the words I heard

And I said them all to you.

 

A moment like no other

And I meant it all the way

When we two became one

Right on our wedding day.

 

It’s not about the future

When I say I love you,

This moment now is all I know…

I know my love is true.

 

Stewart Russell © September 27, 2022

Seventy-Two Years Ago

 

Seventy-two years ago

Dad and Mum Russell were married,

We would have been celebrating

If they both had tarried.

 

But this was not to be

As Dad Russell was the first to go,

He was deceased in 2009

And in 2020 Mum Russell died also.

 

Actually, they were married

For almost sixty years

Falling some five months short

On that dreaded November day.

 

It was on the 16^th of November

That Dad Russell took his leave

Followed by Mum eleven years later

And all like now we still grieve.

 

 

 

How we wish they were still here

To celebrate with us today!

But like so many of their generation

Death has taken them away.

 

Yes, seventy-two years ago

They said to one another, “I do”

And naught but death could part them

Proving their love was true.

 

We will celebrate their union

As long as God lends us breath

With the wish that they could know

The great void that they have left.

 

Stewart Russell © April 6, 2022