Love Poem

I'm happy to say I've learned considerably more about love since writing this three years ago. Learning is perhaps the most precious thing in life (after life itself, that is). Here's a love poem nonetheless:
A Love Poem, for Curtis
October 7, 2016
You asked me to write you a love poem.
On the one hand a request so simple –
of course I love, I love so easily –
On the other, as if you were asking me
to take out my heart, or possibly my bowels,
and place them on the table for all to see.
My friend once told me that I’m like a peach –
a soft and fuzzy skin, with sweet and juicy flesh,
and then, in the heart, a pit
impossible crack open.
She isn’t talking to me anymore, or
not often, anyway. She has found love.
And by that I mean… I know not what.
I have never loved another.
That is not true.
I have never felt at peace in another’s presence
That is not true.
I have never felt extended peace in another’s presence over the course of years.
That is true.
I’ve always been restless inside.
So, a love poem.
A love poem from one who is never
satisfied, or not for long,
who longs for song all the time
wants the world to be beautiful all the time
and is always disappointed
by the grisly imperfections.
A love poem, from someone who is filled with fear.
Someone who finds herself alone
in her childhood home
“childless”, and without a mate.
A love poem
from someone who, some days, talks more
to the birds
than she does
to other human beings.
The jays are squawking white I write
What am I to do with love?
Where am I to place it?
There is a phenomenon in this world:
the incredible gap between
spirit and body
between mind and manifestation
And what I mean by that is
so much happens on the invisible plane
that is – talk is easy, feeling is easy,
all the world moves through you at the speed of wind
like a great idea, or a complex dream, so easy this
spontaneous flux,
so quick...
but if you want to actually makesomething
(which we value here so greatly)
if you want to create something physical,
visible, that might even outlast you,
it is a slow and painful process.
we produce we produce
we say we are productive
we reproduce we reproduce
women split themselves open
there is nothing easy about it.
“The tyranny of expectation”
I found this note to self on a
cue card yesterday
last year’s reminder to question.
The measure of success:
just what is visible and
separate from you,
what you can leave behind.
What if
we were only meant
to make simple things?
Things that vanish over time?
Like delicious meals
or woven baskets
transient gifts and tools,
only what is wholly useful,
and then imbue those things with love?
I have a fantasy of craftsmanship
I have a fantasy of communication
I have a fantasy of simple things
all complexity solved
in the quickening medium
of mind and air
where a thought
is no heavier
than a feather.
The word that is spoken, that in the moment it is spoken,
reflects and heals the air
is the most powerful word.
It will never be recorded
and if it is, it will (and should)
make no sense at all.
What does this have to do with love?
Reflecting on all I have and
have not created
only one half of it is visible.
Just because you can’t see my jewels,
doesn’t mean they don’t shine.
Is this one big justification for being an old maid?
No.
I have made brilliant love.
I have cooked brilliant meals.
I have appreciated blooming flowers
and I have spoken words
at just the right time
to heal the air around me.
This is written in some other script,
the cloth the fates are weaving
the invisible fabric of the world
I have added my colours
I have added my colours
I have done my best for all.
So this is my love poem then.
It is fraught with inconsistencies
Its form is awkward, tending to prose
It scrabbles and reaches
It looks back and doubts
It has been written over the course of 15 minutes
in three different rooms in my house
with a warm cup of coffee
and stellars jays screaming outside
and the garbage truck passing by
It is Friday morning
like so many Friday mornings
and the question of love
still astounds me.