Definitions of Love

For almost twenty years, you've lived beside,
within me, almost another soul, a strong root
planted deep in my soil. You've grown the love
you stood next to me to promise. So much in life

has been harder than we thought-
love and its sudden absences, work,
the birch of our only, treasured child.
From the world come storms of bad news;

my love, we live in a dystopian time.
Even the climate's changing in alarming ways.
But in your steadfastness you've defined
this too-used word that eludes definition,

thar's been stripped of meaning as the mountains
of their trees. Still, love returns, inexplicable
miracle. Fireweed seeds itself over the clearcut hills;
your even temper calms my highs and lows

and we find ourselves in each other's arms, smiling
though all seemed lost. Ghosts of what might have been
may always haunt, but our love lives on
swimming in our blood. Ler's go to bed

early tonight and catch up on sleep, on talk,
on the love that springs up when two bodies embrace,
two souls root themselves deep and grow,
hidden in the richness of that inner dark.