How much I love you

(From 16 years ago, for Bern, with a smile....)

HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

I love eating breakfast
in local resturants
in small North Carolina towns
with odd names that have 'boro'
on their ends.
Because I know the sausage gravy
is real and the biscuits made from scratch
and the grits won't run
except with butter--real butter.
And I love you more than that.

I love reading three books at a time:
a mystery, a fantasy, a straight novel:
all on my bedside table,
sometimes in my book bag,
letting each capture me,
mixing up the characters and plots,
racing with each of them to the end.
And I love you more than that.

I love a beach and the stuff
washed up on it--odd and wierd--
and a dog--snuffling and running alone--
beside me, behind me, ahead of me,
and the smell of the ocean
and the heat of the sun,
burning my bare shoulders and face.
And I love you more than that.

I love the taste of Pino Noir--
the husks of nuts,
the almost too ripe grapes,
the way it slows me down
and slurs my speech
and opens my heart to truth.
And I love you more than that.

I love sleeping in hotels
that have too many pillows on the bed
and HBO on the TV,
so I can pile the pillows
from the other double bed
onto mine and snuggle down in the pillows
and go to sleep with the TV on
knowing I'll wake up in time
for the conference I'm attending.
And I love you more than that.

I love the smell of vanilla (love that a lot)
and the first taste of every mornings' coffee
and the feel of cashmere sweaters
(my own or some lovely woman's)
and the look of the sky in deep winter
and the first few notes of anything
Mozart wrote (Good bless him)...
I love my senses.
And I love you more than that.

And I love when the pitchers and catchers
arrive for Spring Training,
just imagining it--the leather of the gloves,
the shining white of the baseball,
the weight room designed to overcome
the indiscretions of the off-season,
the green of the grass,
blue of the sky,
warmth of the air,
the soothing symmetry of the game
and the promise of spring around the corner.
I love you profoundly, eternally, always and forever:
and I'm not sure I love you more than that.

jgb 2/11/06