A Valentine's Card for Jo Anne, My Eternal Wife

 
Whenever I have paused to write to you a tribute
I am confronted with dumbfounded-ness
You are the one subject that to describe puts me in most dire humility
I know I cannot find the words to serve as your descriptors
for words are but symbols of symbols, twice removed
from that Great Spirit from whence we’ve come
whose music you forever seem to dance to
Indeed Shakespeare would take pause before such task
 
Do I stand in silence upon this stage and just feel the experience of you?
In that too I would fail, for you are beyond what I can access
You have cleared clutter from out your soul that lingers still in mine
What I talk, you walk, my model, my goal for living
in the place of trust and forgiveness
You accommodate every errant move I make
always knowing so much more than I that the
out-rage-ous has not Been I at all but my illusions that
I have born of anxiety, of doubt and the throes of my dis-eases
 
You are as wondrous as God can make a soul
your ascension delayed only by the fact that
God is not done using you to wake me from my slumber
so we may hand-in-hand repose in arms of bliss
of peace, making lost: memories of abuse, of violence
memories of my parents’ and grandparents’ ad infinitum
DNA Memories fade away, as your calm confidence
and reassurance reinforces who we really are
where we came from and who lives within us
 
That you showed up in my life and, persisting for
ever expanding mutual commitment, could see
beyond the chaos I acted out, and saw that
your salvation was through me … is best deserving
of my most valiant effort to keep you eternal company
to do the work, release illusions, and comfort you In kind
in knowing reassurances…for you, Jo Anne, are my proof
there is indeed a God – And I will always love you