As silver threads weave softly through our hair

and mirrors reflect truths we cannot hide,

we feel it, like a distant bell that tolls.

The day will come when one must go ahead

and one must stay holding what remains.

If I should be the first to fade from view,

Don’t let your heart be anchored in my faults.

Remember instead the riot of our laughter,

how joy arrived unannounced and made itself at home,

how we squandered whole afternoons doing nothing

and called it everything.

Yes, I was stubborn, like a storm at sea,

too loud, too sure, too foolish by half,

but let those memories grow small with time,

like shadows at the height of the day,

outshone by brighter times.

And if you are the one who slips beyond my sight,

I will remember us in shattered fragments of light,

the quiet mischief in your sideways glance, your knowing looks.

The private jokes that exchanged between our minds.

your voice, half song, half laughter,

Stitching music through ordinary days.

We did dance in the kitchen, just as promised,

bare feet turning vinyl tiles to ballroom floor,

Washing up forgotten, dinner burning.

I will dance there still,

arms curved around the shape of you in invisible air,

leading where no footsteps follow mine.

I will walk the long lanes we once wandered,

sun warm upon my back as it was then.

The song of birds will speak your name,

and in the sacred ease of doing nothing

I will find you seated next to me,

for we were never more complete

than in our shared and wordless being.

But before the curtain draws and lights grow dim,

hear this while breath still carries it;

without you, my life would have been

a house with empty rooms,

a sky with fewer stars.

And when at last we part, as all must part,

know this above all else:

you have been loved

as fiercely and as fully

as this mortal heart of mine was ever meant to love.