By Erwin Maramat

For Henry and Connie

We are fleeting wisps in the incessant stream of time, and time knows nothing of love, joy, or sorrow as it recklessly sweeps by. Time doesn’t comprehend that love in itself is eternity. The gift of love wipes away the sense of space and time. Love takes root in the moment, and in the heart, and in two kindred spirits bound to never part. There are galaxies of wonder within that conspire to bring us together.

At one point, we were holding each other by the porch watching season after season unfold. Alas, before it is known, seasons once reflected in our eyes take toll in our lives, leaving us with graying hair and shriveling skins. Somehow, we, like hands, clasped so tightly, understand what true love is. We will look back and see that love has less to do with those years we spent growing old together, and more to do with our collective sight going beyond the superficial borders of the flesh to grasp and magnify the beautiful character that drives who we truly are, and that we love without conditions. We grow old together but not inescapably grow less fond of one another. There are countless stories for us to share by the fireplace or by a camp fire, regardless whether we have fire or not, our hearts will keep each other warm. We will have endless conversation of us, of what will be and of what was. Stories of happy ever afters that are about to begin.

We look forward to waking up each day only to find that somewhere by the horizon time wields our twilight. We need to be reminded that whenever we grow tired of saying the words ‘I love you,’ days we say them are significantly outnumbered by eternity in which those words will be memory bound by silence bouncing as stirs of echoes. If we said ‘I love you’ over and over; fret not, it shan’t fall out of grace, love is the essence of grace.

We are a fragrant perfume that today is wearing. Someday down the road, while in the atmosphere of obscurity, a hint of the lingering past will come our way to convey of love long forgotten and rekindle the flames that are humbly sleeping in the embers. They die out, merely if we wish them to, but why extinguish the flame? When we know that days with us are far too rare to be left unthought-of, days that are worth keeping when there are none of it to count.

In the depths of despair lay the daylight of faith, our paths are ablaze lined with a thousand suns to lead us back in each others arms and should there be no sun, we will bring forth our own. I have not seen love the way it is painted on canvas, of a lovely moon whose radiant face is anchored on the surface of a lake in cloudless night, until the day I caught the breathing work of art in your eyes where love is painted into being on your iris.

If we were to behold nothing of love, then what of the saffron of fading sunsets? What of the colors of spring? What of the symphonies enlivening the evening? None of it will matter when our hearts are starving. When the subtle breeze of autumn rustle the leaves of the afternoon hour and the clock striking numbers absent from the clock, and we desperately cling to hope to get us through the day, how barren that hour shall be if we lived it without love.

We are fleeting wisps in the incessant stream of time, and wisps that we are, love is all we need.