Intercession on a fortieth anniversary

Since it is our fortieth anniversary, here are forty lines...

Intercession

Creatures of the excited imagination,
Lovers dream themselves into being,
Arriving at places they themselves invented,
Ready for whatever consummation
Involvement demands of them. Self-centred,
Selfless, they are the great unseeing,
So they move from desire to act,
Action being the desired fact.

Under the skin their hearts beat on
Precisely as before but somehow frailer.
Cramped inside a ribcage all too tight,
Heavy and buoyant at once, undone,
Unbalanced, drawn deeply to the night,
Rocked in the arms of hope and failure,
Calling each other’s names as if calling
Home from a height, on the point of falling.

Give them the years. Give them each other. Let
Everything be done for their delight.
Offer them gifts of chocolate and praise.
Regard them as something peculiarly apposite.
Get real for them. Admire their swelling days.
Extend below them a proper safety net.

Stay them and save them. Let them not be absolute
Zero when temperatures fall. Let them remain warm
In the Ice Age of the world. When fires
Roast the planet let them preserve their form.
Though branches are lopped let them nibble at the root,
Existing not entirely on their desires,
Sustaining life however the body tires.

In the calendar and in their chromosomes,
Nest them down with children to note their aging.
Tethered to their lives like sheep or goats,
Employed about survival, let them run
Rings around fortune as it goes on its way raging.
Turn from them terror and tragedy, hot moon, cold sun,
Wild gales that break the glass in broken homes,
Ill winds that blow from plague lands or from wars.
Nurture them. Let them avoid whatever the world promotes.
Ease them through mortality with its list of chores.
Dare love to sustain them. Guide them to love’s shores.

A description and an intercession.