From “Love Poem for Robin” by Michael Mirarchi

From “Love Poem for Robin”
by Michael Mirarchi

I. 36.09678, -112.11041

It’s sunset on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon,
which, with patient effort, was carved 6,000 feet deep
by the Colorado River some five million years ago.
We stare into the abyss,
me through binoculars,
you through your camera.
Gently, I touch your shoulder to draw you
from the canyon’s spell.
Now I am on my knees.
Robin, I love you.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
Will you marry me?
Your soft blue eyes, through which your spirit shines,
well up with tears
as you clasp your hands over your heart
and say yes.
The middle-aged woman standing behind us
vigorously shakes her husband, who is
oblivious to us as he
watches the sun set over the canyon.
Larry! Larry!
She points to us.
This is much more interesting
than what you’re looking at!
I stand up and hug you,
tears in my eyes now as well
as I imagine our love,
carved with patient effort,
deepening over the mysteries of time.

PHOTO: The author proposing to now-wife Robin at the Grand Canyon (Arizona, USA).

NOTE: The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon in Arizona carved by the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and attains a depth of 6,093 feet. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited many times. Nearly two billion years of Earth’s geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut channels through layer after layer of rock. For thousands of years, the area has been inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Mirarchi is a poet, editor, and attorney living in Philadelphia, where he practices child welfare law. His work recently appeared in Last Call, Chinaski! and The Oneness of All, and he copy-edited Barbara Crooker’s books Some Glad Morning and Book of Kells. In law school, he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.  In his free time, he enjoys kayaking with his wife in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and fly fishing for native brook trout in small mountain streams in the Poconos.