On Love . . .

Annie Dillard

I love with my hand, not my heart.
When I draw your face,
my fingers trace your lips.
Crossing a page, my hand keeps
contours; I know that art
is edges.
I touch when I type.
With every finger's tip
I travel the weave of the given.
Hand me a pencil,
Cut off my head,
and I will draw you heaven.


Pablo Neruda

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire;
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other
way of loving but this,
in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep,
it is your eyes I close.


"Sous-Entendu" by Anne Stevenson

Don't think

that I don't know
that as you talk to me
the hand of your mind
is inconspicuously
taking off my stocking,
moving in resourceful blindness
up along my thigh.
Don't think
that I don't know
that you know
everything I say
is a garment.


Rosa S. Clement

I think of you
while making this bread.
The ingredients in the bowl,
the thoughts in my mind,
blending in perfect amounts
with fond movements...

The dough, adhering to my hands,
being part of me, is like feeling you,
without wanting to be free,
concentrating my thoughts
on this romantic work
that now lies dormant,
in a ritual of waiting.

The rising, then the baking,
brings scents of cinnamon spreading,
trespassing the last crumb,
filling the house for days,
but comes to me
like your presence that I feel
following my paths,
keeping me company,
inviting me to breathe you deeply.


ee cummings

love is the every only god

who spoke this earth so glad and big
even a thing all small and sad
man,may his mighty briefness dig

for love beginning means return
seas who could sing so deep and strong

one queerying wave will whitely yearn
from each last shore and home come young

so truly perfectly the skies
by merciful love whispered were,
completes its brightness with your eyes

any illimitable star


Return to thoughts and musings.


Read between the lines


another dimension of silence