You’re right – love isn’t just a word
when wrought honestly, love is a life time
spent without expectation of return
love is forgiving when it hurts
letting go of bitterness even as it turns
into your favorite darkening flower
blooming her fragrance into hallways without doors
love is waiting when it hurts to stay still
chasing, without shoes, that fleeting shadow
burning in your chest, turning to pyre and soot
love is you, but love isn’t us
we are divided as a piece of glass
will separate storm from poets and beggars
I light the tree and think of all the years
wound around themselves until no beginning found
of the ache I carry as I would try to conquer thorns
deep in the felt, deep in the felt
of my soul, your soul, shared, changed, lost
we spin until disorientated, punctured producing blood
and there I am again, feeding grey quilled pigeons
with a hamburger before I quit meat and learned
the fear of dying and self preservation
you said “don’t feed them, it only makes them
bolder, sicker, they are after all, feral.”
But I can’t help it, their hungering eyes
the soft bob of rosy cheeks and side-ways
glance, knowing I could just as quickly
lash, hurt, turn inside out
a truce between starvation and freedom
a lot like us, watching November skies
Sagittarius searching for Gemini among
distant black unseen stars
I smell you in my own skin, the things
we never say when we feel pain
I speak out into opaque night, reaching
where fox shadows mirror and blur
owls fly silent as velvet overhead
and all I want is to see your face
and say I love you with all my being
even as I have no expectation, no rule
still, still, still
ever and always
you.
To love fully in the moment
with no thought of the morrow
of neither the length
nor brevity of life
an opening outside of time
inhabiting a hologram
past, present, and future
memory, feeling, hopes and fears
merged as one
in that radical acceptance
of what can and cannot be
than that, no greater courage
or more abandoned folly
no greater joy and pain
Beautiful and haunting
This poetry is beyond words. Thank you for sharing.
Most of this is a love poem. The rest … reads like someone with a constant broken heart.
It’s truly beautiful.
Especially these lines:
“I light the tree and think of all the years
wound around themselves until no beginning found
of the ache I carry as I would try to conquer thorns
deep in the felt, deep in the felt
of my soul, your soul, shared, changed, lost”
Such anguish