Isthmus

I admire how your wine enjambs my chalice;
together we engender abundance.

From nonage to dotage has amity trussed us
with cords durable, not friable,
a lifelong alliance premised upon
mutual troth, harmony, goodwill.

In tandem we endure the oddments
of our odyssey, its vagaries and detours,
obstacles and false starts, transcending
the isolating bourns of the self
to buttress and gusset the other.

We are connoisseurs with refined taste,
perceptively discerning between
the honey of friendship
and the vinegar of estrangement,
sensitive to humankind's innate longing
for connection, attachments
intimate, tensile, everlasting.

Long live the spans bridging lands;
long live the warm, outreaching hands.