Longtime Companions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

They are fortunate indeed, those who get to share the best part of a lifetime together. [Oh, yes, it happens, be sure of it.] Love, though in all its shapes and forms lasts a lifetime. The true love of my life was killed in a road accident after we had been together only a relatively short time.; worse, it had been a closet relationship due to a prevailing  animosity and suspicion towards gay people in those days,so I was left to grieve alone. Our love, though, along with other loves of my life -  my mother, close friends, nature, favourite places... - have inspires and sustained me always, and will continue to do so.

The poem below is a villanelle.  Now, villanelles can say a lot in relatively few words; so too, of course, can love. 

The poem was inspired by meeting up during New Year’s Eve celebrations a few years ago with a gay couple I first met in the early 1960s. Both died within months of each other in 2008 after 46 years together.

So to any young sceptics, I say, don’t ever let anyone tell you gay relationships never last.

Mind you, gay or straight, it takes two to make a relationship work just as it takes two to break it up unless some awful tragedy strikes as happened to me many years ago. The keyword here, of course is ‘work’; all the best relationships find both partners working at making it succeed.  Discovering the art of give and take rarely comes easy.

This poem is a villanelle:

LONG-TIME COMPANIONS 

One evening in May

at dinner for two,

I told you I am gay

Any doubts fell away

in eyes are blue

one evening in May

So much more to say,

(trusting in you)

I told you I am gay

It had been a long day

leading up to …

one evening in May

Hoping you would say

you love me too,

I told you I am gay

Years on, and grey

(breakfast for two);

I told you I am gay 

one evening in May

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; rev.2016