Friendship

Poetry for Rich & Elaine

Poetry and friendship!
What greater gift can we offer another human being
than to truly notice them?

To notice their beauty,
their particular loveliness,
their way of moving through the world.

Yesterday Elaine and Rich came by my place.
Both nearing eighty.
Both dear friends of more than thirty years.

And watching them together
felt like standing quietly in the presence of something sacred.

Rich walking slightly ahead on the sidewalk,
his eyes scanning for bumps, cracks, little dips in the pavement
that might trip Elaine.

Elaine smiling at his care,
not diminished by it,
but softened into love by being so beautifully seen.

I watched this simple exchange
and felt my heart grow quiet.

This is love, I thought.
Not performance.
Not grand declarations.
Just attention.
Just kindness repeated over time
until it becomes devotion.

They helped me choose a rug.
Told me honestly that an old table needed to go.
We laughed. Talked.
Peeled away layers of worry and stress
until the day itself became luminous.

And this morning I wake with such reverence
for ordinary love, for old friendship,
for the blessing of people who know your life
and still gladly walk beside you.

How blessed am I.

Love, Jayne