Do you love me and has your heart always held me dear,

Am I the one you thought of when you were draped in fear?

After our hearts first touched and I told you I’d return some day,

Did you dream of that day and wish I’d take you in a sexual way,

Was it that I excited your loins as well as brought your heart to beat,

Or was it thoughts of golden coins and the rewards you’d reap,

Could it be you just thought of me in ways of delight and more,

The answer inside my traveled heart is simple, it’s called amour,

My eyes saw love in such a simplistic way I guess, you’re the one I adore,

I understand I do, how could he of such meager means expect an ounce more,

I am grateful beyond spoken word to have what I am allowed to hold,

Scarlet sunsets break through my water-filled eyelids to show the gold,

The globe of our sun burst through the tears bringing a kaleidoscope of starburst,

And for a moment I felt relief as if my heart had quenched its thirst,

The pain shows in my anthem of love I’ve written in rhymes for you,

I have written the truth, Patti, I garner strength to carry on it’s true,

As I returned from across the sea I heard Angel’s trumpets blare,

I raised my weary head from the cot to see and I saw an angel there,

‘Tis true, I swear, from tears to the north of loneliness I felt the loneliness leave,

Perhaps it was love brought by you that has given my soul a needed reprieve,

It called out in anguish as the wind swept clean the soiled green of earth,

That I may touch the earth of my homeland and pray for our rebirth,

How the medic knew, I wonder, at that exact moment he gave me your photograph,

To hold near my heart during the anguish of rejection given by America’s citizen staff,

I needed it so, to hold near my anguished heart because somehow he just knew,

To be predestined to love someone is rare yet I was born to love only you,

Heaven is there to accept the holy souls of the departed few allowed to deploy,

The feeling in my heart is that we will together be there to share eternity’s joy,

And I held close your picture as I cringed inside yet I clung to the belief of predetermined love,

The belief that we were predestined to be, to be together as determined by our Lord above.

The end, I love you Patti

Written in August 1969 about Patti upon my return to the United States to the Philadelphia Naval Hospital.

As we landed we were allowed to touch American soil from our stretchers.