A Poem for Natalia, My Love, from Chuck

My dear Natalia, what can be said about Love that hasn't already been said to heaven and hell and back again? The better part of our atmosphere, by now, must consist of lovers' sighs, of their airy words hovering like fluffy, white angels over every corner of the map.. But then, which of these could ever satisfy, could ever hope to imitate or contain this feeling. I carry for you with every atom of my being, in my arms, so close to my heart, like my own child? I have not the digits, nor even the time, in this one short life's lease, to count for you the ways, but by God, I am eager to try: I love you more than my own life—but this is only the start. I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman but this won't do, this public love in relative terms, or a love that stains itself by putting down instead of raising up. Perhaps, then, my love for you is like the ocean, that greatest of continents, that deepest of Earthly countries, that bore all life on its rising tide...but to exclude the rest? The lush forests and lands of my love, the windy song of the desert storms, the tundra's perfect desolation and desire? Should my love for you not profess to contain something beyond one mere world within? Why settle for airy words when the fire of the sun will do better? Every sun is my love for you and every moon—every universal force and dimension every matter and non-matter in every universe I love you this and so much more than anything