Wednesday, June 22, 2011

I Once Saw - Reprise

Freya Coming To Handle Me

I think this poem is one of my favorites. When I remember old loves it is most often with kindness and gratitude for the privilege of loving like that. I am a fortunate man. The women who chose to love me were all decent and careful with the hearts of others. One was too ill to really be with me. That was long long ago now. The woman who married me was in the end too ill to stay with me and we divorced hoping to save both our lives. I was saved. She unfortunately was not, and she passed in 2001. Her sister told me earlier that same year that she believed my ex-wife still loved me. I still love her today. Illness, death and divorce did not stop my heart from beating with her rhythm. Neither did that keep me from loving others since. I believe that having the chance to give and receive love in all its richness and diverse forms is the highest privilege of this problematic planet. I know it is not actually a right. Perhaps in God's World you could say such a thing: "I have a right to love and be loved!" This is the World That God Permits. In this world lives without much love are not only possible, they are common when you cast your net worldwide in the industrialized countries. Elsewhere, despite privation and injustice, there may be more love than you think. We do pay a price for our greed.

I don't think you earn love, but I know you can earn the loss of love. Genuine love is a privilege and contains a note of Grace in the largest sense.

Oh my, I do go on...pay me no mind...

I Once Saw

God sees the long shape of me
All at once, and me,
I once saw this too.

But that was between my lives.

All I have is small
Plodding steps, flat feet.

I recall your eyes
Lighting my heart, God close by.
I recall your touch.

Written November 1, 2008 10:27 AM
First posted, January 23, 2009

6 comments:

  1. All I have is small
    Plodding steps, flat feet
    Found the path
    Weather short or long
    Narrow or wide
    Found for me
    Through brail of the foot

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  2. Christopher you are such a wonderful lover.
    Today.... i set out, plodding steps, flat feet. i told my feet to just keep going, slowly but steady.
    and they did for 6 hours:) and so much love i met today...so much.
    It is a privilege i did not earn. yet it was given to me somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris,
    this reminded me of this....And this plays in the background....i need not say more...thank you for taking me back to this...

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  4. i don't know what to do with this. i don't know. for me love lives in the gaps as does truth and beauty and god (if i must name it). but when the mechanism shifts and the love is changed or gone, i shiver. i don't understand. i want to love like you do. i do not. i'm a little fearful of this. if your love stays, then how can my love be gone? riddle me that, batman. truly. i know i loved my husband. and i know now i do not. and so i wonder what it is i stand on. i wonder on my flaws.

    your poem is beautiful.

    xo
    erin

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  5. and here's a further question i am almost embarrassed to ask, was i perhaps loving myself all those years and then when i changed the love changed? and what does that mean of me and love now? i am wary of my ego. when you love(d) do you love beyond your ego? do you know what i mean? i mean to stomp my ego to the ground but i know love sprouts of me in reciprocation, not soley, but i know my needs are deep.

    perhaps it is different between men and women. i know many men who love beyond reciprocation. i can't say the same of women. this is not so good for my sex.

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh my friends, you have left lovely comments and I am very pleased. I wish I had more energy. This week has been a hard push and I don't have much left. So I will eat and then go to bed. Thank you so much.

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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