Art DuBois Poems and Photos

Tag: love

  • Vow

    Vow

    I know you tell me how handsome I am now,

    How wonderful I am.

    How I am so fit and trim,

    And perfect in every way.

    And how that is only part of why and how you love me

    As you pledge yourself to me forever.

    I do know that others may say I am handsome

    And wonderful,

    And look trim and fit,

    And that I just may be perfect,

    Or not.

    But today I don’t need you to pledge to me your love as I am today,

    But how I will be should my face contort gently or not due to the expected ravages of age.

    To pledge to loving the less wonderfulness of me

    when we struggle together through who knows what, and hopefully maintain a balance

    with the beauties of life and love we also experience.

    Through years and years and years and years.

    I need you to pledge that as my body changes, you still love me.

    I need you to love not just the perfect me that you see today,

    But the imperfect me that will meet the imperfect you,

    Over and over and over and over again,

    and together shine through the years.

  • Senses

    As my hearing fades I must consider the good in that. Perhaps now the sound of thunder will frighten me less.And then someone asks, “But what of music, Art?”

    And I glance straight ahead and answer, but only to myself, for speaking my truth aloud would only serve to alarm those who are in the vicinity who still hear well.

    I say to myself, “I will ALWAYS hear music.

    I have absorbed all that I’ve heard and enjoyed

    And even now, with my hearing still partially intact, I compose entire musical pieces

    in my mind to the extent that I hear them clearly and loudly as if played by the geniuses who’ve inspired this highly active imagination.

    The sound of a solo double bass putting down a simple five note funky melody is subtly joined by sweet bleeps of a trio of sax, trumpet and trombone that rise to its own type of thunder.

    A blast of energy blazes through in a blast of precision mixed with the swagger of Stevie Ray and vocals come forward from a mix of Janis Joplin and Bessie Smith

    and I continue to evolve this piece through endless possibilities as my feet tap and my fingers snap to new found options in the music I’ve loved so much

    and I know that nothing can take that away from me.”

    And then someone asks, “What about your vision, Art?”

    And I speak out loud that which I know.

    “That of which I have experienced as beautiful,

    My wife and my children and my whole family,

    My friends,

    My dogs,

    My ocean,

    My trees,

    And all that I’ve taken in with my eyes and experienced the splendor,

    are photographs in the scrapbook of my mind.

    They, too, go with me, wherever I go.”