black march…
I have a freind
At the end
Of the world.
His name is a breathOf fresh air.
He is dressed in
Grey chiffon. At least
I think it is chiffon.
It has a
Peculiar look, like smoke.
It wraps him round
It blows out of place
It conceals him
I have not seen his face.But I have seen his eyes, they are
As pretty and bright
As raindrops on black twigs
In March, and heard him say:I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.
— Stevie Smith —
the beginning and end of everything…
Making love with you
is like drinking sea water.
The more I drink
the thirstier I become,
until nothing can slake my thirst
but to drink the entire sea.
— Kenneth Rexroth —
fishing is much more than fish…
ever want to know what would happen
if your life could be fertilized
by a love thought
from a loved one
who loves you
— Nikki Giovanni —
talisman…
i write these words
quickly repeat them
softly to myself
this talisman for you
fold this prayer
around your neck fortify
your back with these
whispers
may you walk ever
loved and in love
know the sun
for warmth the moon
for direction
may these words always
remind you your breath
is sacred words
bring out the god
in you
— Suheir Hammad —
roc…
We are come late to the love of birds
for we are come late to love.
Before we had been nothing:
a fossilized egg, a tired metaphor, old as mutton.
Now, the sharp twinge of middle age
and we are caught in love’s punctured balloon.
In banana peel sobriety.
Furred epithet, feathered lash.
We are come late to the mythology of love,
the beefheart stain of the great winged roc
upon the ground of our imaginings,
soft like the centres of some candies.
Soft like the quilted centres of our beds,
our quivering bird organs.
Give us the sweeping shadow,
down from the mountains of Araby.
Give us the claws that catch
us from the desert path, swoop us,
fat white sheep in the meadow,
into that prickled nest, high, up high.
— Sandra Kasturi —
to be the candle or the mirror…
People grow when they are loved well.
If you want to help others heal,
love them without an agenda.
—Mike McHargue —
a life in letters…
You are so dear, so wonderful. I think of you all day long, and miss your grace, your… beauty, the bright sword-play of your wit, the delicate fancy of your genius, so surprising always in its sudden swallow-flights towards north and south, towards sun and moon — and, above all, yourself.
— Oscar Wilde —
(to eat) crimson candies…
… with you.
flying home…
… the doorway each will soon enter:
where I will meet her again
and know her again,
dark radiance with, and then mostly without, the stars.
Very likely she has always understood
what I have slowly learned
and which only now, after being away, almost as far away
as one can get on this globe, almost
as far as thoughts can carry—yet still in her presence,
still surrounded not so much by reminders of her
as by things she had already reminded me of,
shadows of her
cast forward and waiting—can I try to express:
that love is hard,
that while many good things are easy, true love is not,
because love is first of all a power,
its own power,
which continually must make its way forward, from night
into day, from transcending union always forward into difficult
day.
And as the plane descends, it comes to me,
in the space
where tears stream down across the stars,
tears fallen on the actual earth
where their shining is what we call spirit,
that once the lover
recognizes the other, knows for the first time
what is most to be valued in another,
from then on, love is very much like courage,
perhaps it is courage, and even
perhaps
only courage. Squashed
out of old selves, smearing the darkness
of expectation across experience…
— Galway Kinnell —