addition considerations

For awhile you were my one and only.
I devoted myself to being the best father I could be.
I am still that father now
But you’re not the only one in my life.

It’s a change for both of us.
You still get all your favorite foods prepared.
You still get my affection and guidance.
But now I’m in another relationship, too.

I adore you. You know this.
I adore her, too, in another way.
You don’t easily accept this change yet.
It feels like losing me to share me.

You will be departing next year
Going off to college and your adult life.
She has arrived this year
Before you are ready to transition.

Every problem is an opportunity.
This can be a good thing.
She’s not moving in, you know?
This is still your house with me.

I am a happier person as you can see.
That’s good for you and me.
We still have our same special times together.
I have more to give, not less.

Our relationship is an unbreakable bond.
I wish you could make room in your heart
For someone new in my life.
I’m hoping for this generous gift.

She could be a welcome addition in your life
But she’s not going to push her way in.
She will be sensitive to your feelings
And let you determine what works for you.

She will only ever come here as a guest
When you are here, only with your permission.
I promise you’ll get every consideration.
Don’t worry, be happy!

second self

I think you are my second self.
We laugh about all the little twin behaviors
So many the same almost like we were cloned.
Even more I marvel at the large questions agreement.

I want to make the world a better place
Starting with how I treat the people in my life
While opposing injustice anywhere
And defending all life on our planet.

You have lived a life dedicated to the struggle
Against oppression, for liberation.
You have walked the walk while others merely talk.
You have been an exemplary comrade.

You are completely honest and direct.
You don’t hold back secrets.
A conversation between us feels as true
As a conversation with myself.

We share a systems view of things.
We take in information with an open mind.
We analyze complex interactions
And solve problems through understanding.

Part of me loves domestic life, nurturing, children.
Part of you is a no nonsense woman of the world.
We are male and female both
Incorporated into a complete person.

I embrace the part of you that is male
Even as I desire your female form.
I’m in tune with your female responses
Even as I lift you off your feet.

You are my ideal companion.
You complement me in every way.
We found each other by good fortune.
We hold each other now with certainty.

peaches

ditto

Ditto.
Two syllables that please me much.
At last a word that can be spoken between us
To express what cannot yet be said.

This could be algebra
Using a variable to hold possible values.
This could be a bridge
Between statement and fact.

I am very happy to be in a relationship with you.
That’s an understatement as you know.
I know about you, too.
You share so much of yourself.

What you do is how you show
Your feelings for me.
You bring out the pictures of your past,
Your dearest memories.

You open your inner life to me.
You speak without words.
I listen. I hear you. My heart is touched.
Me, who lives by words.

thinking in metaphor

Thinking in metaphor
That’s the way my mind works.
It’s a bit of a joke about me
For the people I work with.

You tell me about your work
How you approach it like a restaurant
Where you are the waitress,
Applying one experience to another.

Like diners the staff who bring in the revenue
Tell you what they want, sometimes a challenge.
The programmers are the kitchen staff.
You keep them happy filling the orders.

I hear you thinking in metaphor
And I am blown away by the discovery.
Here’s yet another something about you
That matches me in my core self.

I’m visiting you and there’s an empty shelf you cleared
For my stuff that matches the empty shelf at my place for you.
It is literal shelf space. It is also metaphorical.
We are becoming part of each other’s lives.

We are sitting on your couch looking at those shelves.
Mostly you don’t use them for books and you are telling me
How pleased you were at my place to notice the same approach.
There are so very many parallels on every level converging.

You don’t believe in magic. You are a rational person.
You subscribe to the scientific outlook on things.
And there’s a very sound basis for being grounded like that.
But there’s something going on here outside of that mindset.

There’s some point at which the odds of so many happy chance events
Invites us to entertain the thought of another explanation.
No matter that we don’t know what that is,
We know that it is happening. We take notice and enjoy it.

You are aware of yourself in my presence feeling comfortable.
I tell you how I feel welcome in the place where you have lived alone.
You tell me how you don’t feel self conscious when we are intimate.
I feel like we are effortlessly dancing hearing the same music.

But I don’t pretend it is all a blissful dream.
Sleep does not come easily to either of us alone
And together it is more of a challenge.
We are like the proverbial ships passing in the night.

But we are problem solvers, both of us.
It’s in our nature to figure out solutions.
We talk about it and think about it and work it out,
Working it out for both of us together.

midsummer night swing

bastille morning doorstep view

"Pooh!" whispered Piglet. "Yes, Piglet?" said Pooh. "Oh nothing," said Piglet. "I was just making sure of you."

Looking at this card how I imagine you might see it,
I noticed those grand old trees standing witness,
Trees that pass the centuries,
Trees that speak to you and connect you to your father.

Looking at this card how you might read it coming from me,
I thought you might smile at the exchange
And appreciate me poking some fun at myself.
As Robert Browning wrote, “Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.”

snapping turtles storm drain sex

declaration

diver training

truth commission delegation

We enjoyed a summer day hike together in the pine barrens
Following along the tidal stream flowing to the bay shore.
We enjoyed an al fresco dinner in town as the sun set
Then strolled to the beach and went barefoot.

Such a beautiful sight of the gibbous moon in the big sky
In and out behind the clouds, shining far out on the sea,
The gentle waves tickling our feet walking the shoreline,
We are two happy people falling in love late in life.

Such a place to call forth memories of another beach
Where your emotions filled you as full as this moon,
A beach in Korea on the other side of the world
And two people there you carry with you in your heart.

She was your compatriot delegate investigating war crimes.
He was meeting you both on the beach in the darkness.
She had faithfully visited him all those years in jail
And now they talked and talked of many personal things.

Was he underground, setting a meeting out of sight?
For sure he was a witness to a massacre of his village
There in the hills fifty years ago, him a partisan fighter.
What he wanted most now was for the truth to see the light of day.

You and the Truth Commission delegation go to that hillside,
The television cameras show you there in a macabre scene,
Digging up skeleton after skeleton from the mass grave,
Showing the world what the “liberators” did and then hid.

Being there, digging up those bodies, how awful for you.
Being there, helping to uncover the dark secret, how good for you.
Being there on the ground with the delegation, with your two friends,
That was a life changing experience.

Tonight you tell me about what happened there
As we gaze out into the far distance feeling the evening shore breeze
With the moon revealing the great expanse of ocean
And I am transported into your innermost regions.