A More Logical Love Poem

(inspired by a conversation with my friend laurel)

I can live without you.

 

You are not a

Missing piece

That I can’t function without.

I will not

Cease to be

If you leave my side.

 

If I were to

Give you my heart,

Just rip it

Out of my chest

And present it to you

Blood dripping through my fingers,

I would be dead within moments.

 

That’s not how it is with you. 

 

Scientifically,

I know that you are not as directly

Vital

To my existence

As air

Or warmth

Or food.

You are not more important

To my general well-being

Than the thing

Pumping blood inside my chest.

I do not have to have you

In order to survive.

 

But I still want you in my life.

 

The stars will not stop shining

If you choose to go away

(But they would not seem as beautiful

Without you next to me)

 

I am still a whole being

When I’m on my own

(But I am a better person

When I’m with you) 

 

Equations and physics would carry on

If you were to disappear

(But then what would be

The point?)

 

I know that

Scientifically,

I could live without you.

I could still breathe,

Still move,

Survive.

But the thing is,

I really don’t want to.

 

You may not be the thing

That gives me life,

But you are what makes it

Worth living.

 

Tell Me What Your Sky is Like

(wrote this back in 2014; just tweaked it a bit now)

You’re states away

About to take out the trash

And I ask you to tell me what the sky is like

You say that you’ll tell me when you get back in

I sit in my darkened bedroom

The laptop screen glowing

The cursor blinking

Waiting for your words to come to life again

You come back five minutes later

“It’s too cloudy tonight for stars,”

You say

Typing the words from miles away

“But oh, you should see the moon”

And it makes me smile

To think of you

Out in your hazy front yard

Heavy bag of trash in your hands

Maybe a dusting of snow on the ground

And you looking up

Searching the heavens

Staring into the glow of the moon

Because I wanted to know

What your sky looked like

And you wanted

To tell me

Skipping Stones

(for my brother)

The long legged boy stands on the beach

Ankles sprouting out from his flapping pant legs

White socks, stretched high

Black sneakers, double knotted

(He hates the feel of grainy sand

On his bare feet)

He refuses to go in the water

Choosing instead

To pick his way along the rock studded landscape

Standing out as a tall, lonely specter

In the flat emptiness 

Of the shore

He searches the ground, bending into the wind

Picking up the flattest stones

Rubbing over their smoothness

With his frog-like fingers

Before skimming them

Into the water

And when one skips

Three perfect, arching hops

He raises his arms

In victory

 

Poetry Month! (Outside poems: The Blizzard, Recuerdo, and The Orange)

So, April is poetry month! I know this for the same reason I knew March was women's history month: I work at the library, and the displays of books in the children's room change depending on what time of year it is. This is how I stay informed about things. Who needs the internet?

Anyway, I guess this means I should really try to post things more regularly. I haven't been writing a lot of poetry lately, but maybe this will motivate me to get back to it. In the meantime, have some assorted poems from my collections:

The Blizzard

Now that the worst is over, they predict
Something messy and difficult, though not
Life-threatening. Clearly we needed

To stock up on water and candles, making
Tureens of soup and things that keep
When electricity fails and phone lines fall.

Igloos rise on air conditioners, gargoyles
Fly and icicles shatter. Frozen runways,
Lines in markets, and paralyzed avenues

Verify every fear. But there is warmth
In this sudden desire to sleep,
To surrender to our common condition

With joy, watching hours of news
Devoted to weather. People finally stop
To talk to each other - the neighbors

We didn't know were always here.
Today they are ready for business,
Armed with a new vocabulary,

Casting their saga in phrases as severe
As last night's snow: damage assessment,
Evacuation, emergency management.

The shift of the wind matters again,
And we are so simple, so happy to hear
The scrape of a shovel next door.                

--Philis Levin


        
Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—

But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;

And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;

And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;

And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,

And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,

And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;

And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,

And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

 

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

 

The Orange

 

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—

They got quarters and I got a half.

 

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It's new.

 

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the jobs on my list

And enjoyed them and had some time over.

I love you. I'm glad I exist.                         

 

--Wendy Cope