I ... entered the poem of life, whose purpose is ... simply to witness the beauties of the world, to discover the many forms that love can take. (Barabara Blackman in 'Glass After Glass')

These poems are works in progress and may be updated without notice. Nevertheless copyright applies to all writings here and all photos (which are either my own or used with permission). Thank you for your comments. I read and appreciate them all, and reply here to specific points that seem to need it — or as I have the leisure. Otherwise I reciprocate by reading and commenting on your blog posts as much as possible.

7 March 2008

What Would Love?

Listening to the rush of the water, I ask,
what do the stones and the trees want to tell me,
what do the swirls and tangles of the river's turning tide say?
And the birds, heard though not seen, chirping faintly,
what are their messages? They sound busy.

It's the end of the day. The lengthening light grows pale.
A solitary fish skims the surface three times in a row,
it looks joyful. I sit on the steps overlooking the water,
and rock my hips lightly back and forward, my legs
in their pants and boots splayed comfortably, feet flat.

At home the men, my husband and son,
can talk or think or seethe or feel aggrieved. I don't need
to know what they are doing. I ask myself, 'What
would Love do now?' Love, I believe, might watch the river,
might listen to the breeze and birds and sighing water,

Might rock a child to comfort her, laugh at a jumping fish,
and forget the smile on his face when he saw her cry,
the way he smiled right at her, not hiding it. Love
might gaze at this pelican gliding past on the current,
elegant as a swan, effortless, unhurried.

Love might look at crab holes in the sand
and pools of caught water about to be filled and covered
as the tide comes right back in, and the breeze picks up
and tells me it's time to think of my own return home,
with the air becoming colder and darkness drawing down.


7/3/08


Linking to the Tuesday Platform for 10 May 2016 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

9 comments:

  1. Hi Rosemary
    This is a very fine panorama. Your vision of love is an extensive one, encompassing a fine balance of all the world around. It's almost too much to grasp, so we listen and wait and see. This is a fine poem, in idea and execution.
    Steve K.

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  2. Like very much what you did with expanding the parameters of LOVE! Makes sense that love would do all of those things.

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  3. I once wrote a poem what Love is -- when I was 16 -- of course, it looks and feels a bit different to me now in my 30s. Your poem makes me want to revisit it, live there again for a while, form a new experience of it. Your love is wide as the ocean but also small as the crab holes in the sand -- beauty in the expanse and the details. I loved every breath of this poem, and didn't want it to finish when you had to return home. But I suppose there is love there for you, too. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. This is a very beautiful and emotive piece, Rosemary. I am pleased that you shared it so that I could get a chance to read it. The whole scene says so much about love - how it moves through us and around us.

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  5. i agree, love is what's happening now in all the nuances.

    lovely

    gracias

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  6. Wow. I am so glad to read this most beautiful poem, so full of life and birds, and wonderings and coming to terms with things.It is a beauty , Rosemary. Just gorgeous.

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  7. Nice being with M. Nature to contemplate, Rosemary. Of the rocks, stones, and fish, I like the 'crab holes' the best, for its uniqueness. These have some depth where the others show only their surfaces.
    ..

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  8. Wow, this was a perfect, calming soothing poem. I love the questions being asked. They are the right questions, the necessary questions. Beautiful!

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  9. I can relate so strongly to this - going out and finding my soul soothed by nature.

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