"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward
Posted originally on December 2, 2009 and written when noted, one of my better poems in my opinion. As I wrote at that time, the poem is envisioned, taken from a specific moment after making love in a campground in the Canadian Rockies but then turned into imagination. I did not fear love that much at the time but I am never that far from it either. And we should perhaps, fear love a little because love is going to hurt, certainly hurt, though unpredictably when so much of the time. So many of us will go like Tina Turner:
What's love got to do with it,
What's love but a second hand emotion.
Something something something...hearts will be broken.
So many of us will at least for a little while say love hurts too much and I do not trust you, specifically and precisely YOU not to hurt me again so I will not love you. Or maybe anyone ever again...though even at my worst I have never gone there.
As I have written before, I have weathered this stuff pretty well by now. Now that I am so old and not a good partner for so many aging reasons, now I have got it right, pretty much. My last two loves ended well even though the endings hurt so much even doing things well. I think I do it rather like a grown up. That way I have the choice to remain friends with these fine women. One of them has gone on her way, though I knew where she was the last time I looked. The other may be my best friend right now.
This Ache In My Heart
How you lie there still
after the wave has passed by,
after the heat fades,
and I wander off
to pray for the day's return,
kneeling in the grove
beside our campsite
out of your sight on purpose
because I fear love.
March 1, 2009 9:54 PM
I am so glad you have never gone there, that you always loved even when you feared it.
ReplyDeleteI love you :) and maybe in this grown-up way, may it never hurt for you nor me.
Not between you and I, it never will.
ReplyDeleteI can't help it. I will always chose to feel deeply, never mind any outcome. It's the way my gears have been wound.
ReplyDeleteI always reject this of you, "Now that I am so old and not a good partner for so many aging reasons." I do. I do. I do. And now you will lay a calm hand on me and ssssh me. But even on my inside I reject it. Love finds us beyond our reason. It pulls us to the uneven ground where we find little sleep. Like a fisheye lens we know what is coming, one way or another, but we can not help but want to breathe. It is our mechanism.
To think of you so engaged in the Canadian Rockies makes me very glad for you and your love.
xo
erin
I am glad you feel that way about me, and I have many people who do, all from the distance and none close enough to actually BE that partner they say I deserve. So I say it is easy to say "someone should love this man" when you are not the one to actually do so. :) This is just the way it is.
ReplyDeleteFor my side, I know it is difficult to be with me because almost all my passions are solitary activities.
The trip was 2004.
Aging time speeds up at a certain point which may be different for each of us but once it starts for real things change.
Erin, this is the same conundrum of the aged job seeker, admittedly qualified, possibly more than qualified that someone ought to hire, all admit that, but no one will because of some one or another feature which signals that the untried and unknown youth is the better bet this time.
ReplyDeletethis is beautiful.
ReplyDeletemy heart is full.
Thank you, Harlequin.
ReplyDelete