Retro Poem #15: I Know Not What Love Is

I love you.

I believe I love you,

Yet I know not what love is.

Is it an emotion or a feeling

As some define it?

Is love only love when it is worked out by actions,

As I have recently thought?

Must I know beyond a doubt 

That marriage is our future?

Must I swear, “For life, for death!”

As Browning so eloquently explains?

Is love only love

If I know beyond a doubt

That I want to spend my entire life with you?

Must I not say, “I love you,”

Unless I am prepared to follow it with 

“Will you marry me?”

Is that the only option?

O, my dear, I feel that I love you,

But I know not what love is.

If love is all these things,

Then I fear I do not hold it.

I am not ready to commit my life to you.

Yet is that an inherent condition for you?

Can love be so concretely defined?

I want to love you,

But I know not what love is.

Can we engage in love

Without fully understanding it?

If not, none save Christ has ever loved?

Is love all that we have said

And unimaginably more?

Can we walk hand in hand

Along the shores of this abyss,

Knowing we are not as deep as others,

Recognizing we are entering the same amorous abyss,

Walking deeper every day,

Letting love’s sweet waves lap against

our feet, our calves

our thighs, our waists

our chests, our smiling faces

Until we are completely immersed

And continue walking deeper still?

Can we do this?

Is this process - this long walk down the shores

Love itself?

Is the journey the essence of the love?

If it is, I gladly continue

What we’ve already begun.

My love, I want to love you,

But I know not what love is.

Written in 2000.

Retro Poem #14: Good and Gone

It was good

And it is gone

Though not completely

In my memory room

There is a special box of memories

With her name 

And pretty face

Retro Poem #12: Creek Bed Creatures

[I wrote this poem in 1999, while walking a trail along a creek in Olathe, KS.]

I see a doe and her fawns

In a creek bed in a small wooded area

In the middle of town.

These woods creatures

Are meant to have the forest as their kingdom.

Instead the are relegated here

To the refuge of the creek bed.

A house on one side

And a paved walking trail on the other,

Yet their little enclave here

Is a snapshot of nature.

They bed in the leaves

While two squirrels dance and scurry about

Looking for acorns or something interesting.

Right here we have the Nature Channel

Live, in action, in Olathe.

Two of the watch me

Preparing to escape if necessary.

I don’t move;

Neither do they.

The squirrels continue in their dancing work.

The oldest fawn stands.

It is old;

It is tall, and it has lost it’s spots.

I still don’t move.

I have stayed too long.

The other two rise.

They begin their retreat;

I continue on my way.

What is it in this world

That changes kingdom creatures

Into creek bed creatures?

Is it the same thing 

That has littered this creek bed 

With trash and plastic debris?

These beautiful creatures have been forced out.

Their kingdom has been conquered

By the expansion of man,

By our growing population,

By our houses with big yards.

I am grateful to see these creek bed creatures

And their five minutes of nature,

For I fear

There aren’t many creek beds left.

Retro Poem #11: Nothing Comes Out

Do you know 

   that when you cry

   I feel it?

Do you know

   that when you hold it back

   I feel that too?

Sometimes I feel you

   hold down a great big sob

   but nothing comes out.

Sometimes the tears are there,

   but the fears are there too,

   and nothing comes out.

Sometimes you’ve long since 

   stopped the tears

   and I hug you

   and everything wants to start again

   but nothing comes out.

A great big cry

   bundled up with pain and fear

   and whatever else - I don’t know -

   surges toward the surface

   and slams into the wall 

   of your determination.

I am not sure exactly 

   what you are determined to do

   except to hold that bundle down

   and nothing comes out.

Your will is strong;

   you can do almost anything you want.

But sometimes I wish 

   that you would not master your emotions.

I wish they were free to be released

   good, bad

   strong, weak

   attractive, or not

   I wish they came out.

When a sob surges

   it needs to be released.

Emancipate the prisoners,

   and emancipate yourself.

Retro Poem #9: Owners of the Floor

Boldly dancing

with ease and grace,

their age melded with youth

to sing an aromatic duet

which evanesced through the room.

Though they seemed oblivious to all,

none could help but notice them.

[At the same jazz club (see below), one older couple danced with such grace and obvious affection that they stole my heart.  I copied this down on another napkin and gave them a copy.]

Retro Poem #8: Jazz Club

"The Jazz Club" by Phillip Maxwell

music lubricates my mind

the rhythm rolls my head

and my pen

music talks in mysteries

unmatched by words

(I wrote this one on another napkin at the same jazz club I visited with my sister in 2000.  I don't feel like it really finishes its thought, but I love the way the words roll, so I figured it is worth a post.)

Retro Poem #7: A Coy Smile and a Glow

The look in her eyes tells a story

   when she turns and waits for him

   to join her on the floor

She only wants to be with him

Style, stature, skill, and appearance

 -- all irrelevant to her.

He his her man,

and she only wants to dance with him.

(I wrote this on the back of a napkin at a jazz club in Houston in 2000.)