Now we choose to love in the dark,
our minds unwilling to see what
our bodies now so willingly expose.
It is not that our passion has waned
or abated, only that it has elongated
and our concept of time must be suspended .
The mind now must concede
to the heart for it understands
what the body can no longer do.
Maturity allows a depth that youth
cannot attain, desire tempered
by the body’s recognition that it, too,
needs to concede to the effects of age,
and love is a cloister in which we
can still find an easy refuge .