Sunday poetry

endless love

I've seen old married couples
sitting in their rockers
across from one another
being congratulated
for staying together 60 or 70
years,
either of whom
would
long ago have
settled from something
else, anything else,
but fate
fear and
circumstances have
bound them
eternally together;
and as we tell them
how wonderful
their great and enduring love
is
only they
really know
the truth
but they don't tell us
that from the first day they
met
somehow
it didn't mean
all that much:
like
waiting for death
now
it was just an endless determination to
endure.

~ Charles Bukowski