Pat truly understood what it means for two to become one when she wrote: “12th Anniversary Poem (fragments) 1981”
“I know the scent and shape of you:
I know you all, yet not at all. I linger with a connoisseur’s delight over a contour of bone, a texture of skin, gloating over treasures of silk and ivory that are mine alone, and yet no-one’s but yours.
“For you and I are so entwined that we can read each other’s mind at times, a simple exercize. Then comes the stumble of surprise when, reaching out in haste, I find the stranger self behind your eyes.
“Far apart upon the lawn, two tall trees confront each other never to touch, ever alone: yet beneath the grass and stone intertwined their roots have grown, so intimately webbed together, neither one can tell his own.
“So with us: which flatly proves futility of arguments
On which is which, and whose is whose.”
Yes she knew what it meant to be truly in love. In a nutshell, our quiet, sharing love was a spiritual union of souls: two individuals united before God but still separate, different individuals. We respected each other’s privacy but were still touching. We were always aware of each other’s presence even when we were not in the same room. Ours was/is a union between soul mates. As she wrote in another poem to me, “We ask nothing: we have all!”
In her heavenly garden you will find lilacs of the deathless kind; the two trees of the poem.
Eric C. Bow 