9!

love for 8!

Love Poem #1280

How are you today, I was asked.
I am in love! I replied, and it was true.
Oh, how I love! How I love to feel this strangest of feelings!
It is the most warm: the burning on the inside of the ears
the red fuzz in the stomach
the unaccountable rise in the chest. The cross-eyed smile.
But how curious my love is –
not for a single person, nor song, nor food -
my love is for the music of sounds
and the taste of plain air.
I am in love with each person in my life (this means you!)
and I love your absence as much as you presence, for
it is only in your absence that
I can live in your memory. Although, it is only in your presence
that I can touch your hair, smell your skin.
Even while I love you, I am loving all the daytime and the
the night too. Those dreams! They are superb! The ones of kites
and windows; just think of all of the times when
you thought that you heard your name and turned your head (isn’t it
true that it always happens on sunny days?)
-Anonymous

I found this poem yesterday and began to think of all of the things that I love. There are many. I am lucky to love like this, I have heard that some people have difficulty loving. I love to love. I love to laugh and to cry and to feel jealous and to walk arm in arm with my friends. In fact, loving may be my worst vice. I fall in love with everything: foods, places, events, emotions, people, clothing, books, ideas, moments. It is never a light love. Every day I find myself tumbling hard for something, and take a moment to remind myself to breath. Every night I am exhausted and happy with the crusted beauty that I have seen during the day. My list from today: a text message that read: Amara, please tell me the weather in Athens: in Crete rain & I feel cold. By the way, how are you? A business man in the post office with an accidental silk stocking hanging from a buckle on his computer bag. The last bite of the gyros that I ate for dinner. It was perfect.

Today is St. Valentine’s Day, a day for love and lovers. Although I am quite single, I am a serious lover, and I think that today is for me, and everyone in my life. It is a day to celebrate the haphazard nature of emotion, and to think about the joy and the pain of love. Today I will take time to remember the strange and wonderful ways that I feel, and the wild directions that love comes and goes through me, always unexpectedly and always enjoyed.

7.

6.