Photo by Paula Schultz, www.paulasphotoart.com

He’s anachronous in all but engineering concepts and theological orthodoxy. He’s the smile of Mayberry’s Sheriff Taylor, the ideals of Father Knows Best, and the wry humor of his rural upbringing. He exhibits the human disconnect of someone with his medical condition, and the utter charm and creativity of a Norman Rockwell favorite brushed by Dali. 

What is this thing we call our rural love? Is it a soft breeze skirting endless hills, or bald eagles fishing through the frozen Cedar River? Is it you melting into me slowly slowly beneath a Hunter’s Moon slung shallow? Or trusting beyond common sense when there’s barely a reason to doubt? We count our years by the strength in our hope, and if we crest before midnight, it’ll have been another perfect day.

Once burdened with corporate starched shirts and matching ties, he’s now content with the same pair of jeans worn a week at a time, day after long day. (I don’t even ask about his underwear anymore.) After three decades, I no longer need to explain away my tendency for perfection, his for repose. Two warm and faithful bodies bridge any gulf between.

Who will fold themselves within your sheets, lose themselves in your embrace? Who will stroke your graying head as time slips through these rifts and wrinkles? Let’s accept the long-gone hours, salve the wounds and bare the breast. I’m forgetting how it hurt, have forgotten how to leave, and can’t remember what it was that brought us to this place of gentle yes-yes.

The rhythm slow and fresh, like ocean glass hot, melted, poured – a caramel of desire. My farmer is a pioneer with dirt beneath his nails. His doe-soft eyes, his tired frame, the lips so thick and luscious. We’ll talk of how we made it here, and speak our common tongue. We’ll find a way through every slip, and when we fall, we’ll fall together, alive and ticking steady.