Love in Full Color

I wrote this a few years ago, found it in an old file and present it here in a revised and updated form in honor of our 11th wedding anniversary.

Dear Noel,

I love you the color of the boulders that edge the paths in my garden.  I love your amazing reversible pink floral tie that matches your 80's pink silk shirt that I've thankfully never seen you wear.  I love you when you say things that make me blush.  I love you like the Stargazer Lilies that bloom in July.

I love you the pinkest.

I love you like crisp, shiny carrots newly dug from the eath.  I love you the juiciest of the best peaches at the supermarket.  I love you the summer sun as it sets behind the Rocky Mountains.

I love you the orangest.

I love you like the junipers that grace our land and of the moss on the rocks and the soft, spring grass that dances in the wind.  I love you the color that you say you do not like.  I love you more because I know that you secretly do.  I love you the fragrance of herbs that I snip from the garden and the green of the lake on a stormy day.

I love you the greenest.

I love you the fierce color of fidelity and white hot fire and daisies.  I love you the caps on the waves and the snow at Big Mountain and the color of our sailboat we named Tess.  I love you the white of the dishes from which we eat our evening meal and of the crisp paper on which I write.  I love you the moon.

I love you the whitest.

I love you the earth that nourishes and sustains and supports.  I love you the color of your eyes and your hair and your ever-tanning skin.  I love you like finely grained, but knotted alder polished to a soft sheen.

I love you the brownest.

I love you the colors of the garden.
I love you the colors of the sunset.
I love you the colors of the world.

Thank you for helping me garden with passion.
Thank you for showing me the fire of the sunset.
Thank you for giving me the world.

I love you.
Just you.

Shelley