Love Poem: Devotion Poem Anniversary
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Written by: Sally Eslinger

Devotion Poem Anniversary

DEVOTION POEM 39th ANNIVERSARY

On this stilled night, 
Dare I presume?

After a listening to the way
Einstein came to realize his
   Relativity realities,

Dare I presume to sit once overagain in memory
In a student center’s crowded circumstances…?

To choose you, to offer a share of my
Sandwich, snapping a mental photo of your hands,

Which in our years I will come to love, able
To imagine their frequent, gentle touch over

My skin, just as your eyes always do, as still, after
All these years as if asking  permission for its sought sight of me.

Do we presume in our dancing angles so relative
To our decades of delighted diagonals resting our heads

On each other’s chests, feeling the warmth, the slow
Up and down as breaths go on?  Hold then, once again

My heart in your hands, as we incline back or lean forward 
In time, in this astounding utterance of long years — 39 —

That I dare not utter without some marveling tears;
For my long ago hopes of this togetherness,

I once but presumed to bear, a simple maid 
With hopes of loving thee, with a love that can bring you

Some joy in its life and length of passion.
A dream, a hope, a vow become reality.

The deepest love can presume its memories to seem as
If they occurred only yesterday, held in the heart
    Once over, living again.

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(c) sally young eslinger 8/17/22
Anniversary 8/17/83
With regards to t.s. Elliot