The Shortfall of Mortal Love

Love, I would give you everything I have to have and hold

And promise ‘we’ will be enough until I’m very old

The wanting for your touch I pray would never fill or wane

Nor would I suffer very much if love should cause my pain

Darling, the satisfaction of man-woman melded heart

Would be enough forever, but for Love’s intrinsic Part

And just to have you need me would be its immortal prize

Its thrill my hallelujah and its kiss my paradise

Sweetheart, when love lives long enough it is life’s greatest wealth

For it has stood the test of time in sickness and in health

And as I run my fingers over lines betraying youth

I covet years to learn and earn its covenanted truth

…yet oh, for all the beauty that love’s have and hold imparts

It cannot placate wholly the hunger of human hearts

Love, I would render everything I have, to thee entrust

But, there is no salvation in a love twixt dust to dust

© Janet Martin