Today August 31 2009

Tonight I sat in meditation,
Remembering 10 years ago today,
When we first saw each other –
The intense togetherness,
The instant link we felt,
The brightly beaming aura each one saw around the other,
The sensation of your energetic imprint,
The endless depth of soul within each other’s eyes.

This is a double anniversary.
Three years later, also on this day,
We celebrated publicly our love,
With our commitment ceremony.
The sun shone bright, ‘
Our Berkeley yard was newly planted,
And a hundred friends and family members --
Some from down the street, and others who had flown across the continent,
Joined their love to ours in jubilation.

Tonight, I sat with lighted candle
Looking at the box holding your ashes.
Alone, I wept in sadness.
I also spoke my thanks for all the joy and love
We brought to one another –
Friends, partners, spouses – women.



Today was the tenth anniversary of meeting my love.
We’d found each other online, at a “dating” site. We’d quickly started talking on the phone. Each of us racked up $1000 a month in long distance telephone bills for two months. We had to meet.

I remember flying to New York from Berkeley, CA – wondering if this was absolutely crazy. My friends feared I was going to meet an “axe murderer.”

The moment the elevator door opened and we saw each other was like coming home. We clumsily backed into her apartment without taking eyes off each other, embraced, and then spent the next 5 hours looking at each other without speaking, aware of nothing more than the wonder of finding a soulmate connection across the United States.

We finally ate dinner – baked chicken – at 3 am. We made love, then slept into the afternoon. As time passed and the New York Times remained untouched upon her doormat, her neighbors feared an “axe murderer” had come from California.

For the next 10 years, we were to spend no more than three weeks apart, till her death in November, 2008. She died at age 76. I am now 70.

This is a story – in poems – of love between older people, of new insights in widowhood, and of how two people changed each other’s lives, both when together and after the death of one. In her, I finally knew the real meaning of marriage – of being joined together.

I had been married previously and divorced. This time, although we were both women, was the real deal for us both. We discovered what it means to love -- how to build and maintain a dynamic relationship that helped us both to grow wiser and more compassionate.

We had the joy, finally, of marrying legally in September 2008, 7 weeks before her death. We thank the people of Massachusetts from the depths of our hearts for having made that possible.

Widowhood has been a time of transformation. It has brought an amazing unfolding of spiritual awareness. I have discovered perspectives on love and life that I had never before suspected. These insights, based on personal experience, have affirmed and vitalized for me the spiritual truths in both the Old and New Testaments.

Experiencing mutual ongoing love has confirmed the old saying that “Love never dies.”
The following poem – also about our first meeting – was the first poem I wrote after her death.




LOOKING November 14 2008

Labor Day 1999, East Village apartment building,
Elevator door opens to dark landing
Revealing my Love, my Bubbele -- our first meeting.

She’s tall, with gray hair, a beatific smile.
She seems surrounded by bright light -- her loving aura.
Our hearts beat faster; instantly, we’re smitten.
Inside, we sit , till wee morning hours,
Absorbed in each others’ eyes --
Wordlessly, insatiably imbibing wonder --
Becoming one heart overnight.

Now, nine years later –after a brief but total unity--
Spending every moment every day together --
I contemplate her cool dead shell,
Memorize her strong, still face,
And feel her absent energy.
My heart beats faster as it overflows with loss and love.
Tears stream. Love is eternal.