Happy Valentine's Day!Love. It's incurable, and it infects us all at some point. It's the one emotional response we can never predict. Someone once said to me, "Love took me by complete surprise. Shouldn't it rattle first or something?"
...then forget everything you ever heard about love
for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn
and it comes as weather comes to you, and you can't change it:
it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came
and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and hands -
and nothing can be done about it - you wait and pray.
~Carl Sandburg, Honey and Salt
Love changes ordinary moments into something extraordinary. It's the variable in the constancy of our processes. My sense of romance is as quirky and off the grid as my sense of humor. Flowers are mostly lost on me. One of the deepest moments John and I shared, or at least one of the deepest moments I felt - a little snapshot in time, if you will - was in the Safeway parking lot here in Kirkland. I got out of the truck to go in and do the shopping, he stayed behind to read and have a smoke. I was about 15 feet from the truck when I heard his voice, "Hey..." I turned, thinking he'd remind me to get milk or something. Instead, he quietly said, "I love you." I smiled a wavery smile in response and levitated my way into the store. He turned the ordinary into extraordinary.
You never know....
Waiting for the Train
I almost expected
love from you.
You seemed the sort
to give love,
but I didn't
see it coming,
a great steam locomotive
as I stood, unaware
on the tracks,
thinking I was
holding ground -
hit me right between the eyes,
dead center,
knocked me out of my shoes,
left me shaking stars out of my head,
wondering what happened.
Waiting every day now
for the train.
I never suspected
my love for you.
You seemed the sort
to need love,
but I didn't
see it coming from me -
a flowing canyon river
twisting, winding,
carving steps of time
you walked, aware,
into the current.
Knowing I would
come around, you stood
patiently in the rain.
Lucky, you say?
Damned lucky.
It's not often
the train runs on time
and the river
just so.
~BAB 1989~
Beautiful post and your right Love is totally incurable.
ReplyDeleteIt can be a gentle touch, a whispered phrase, a simple gesture that can do it, then like your poem says it's like getting hit by the express train the emotions do a total flip, most of what you do, to anyone else makes no sense, oh and distance is often thought of as a problem, it is as love is limited by a distance.
Again, thank you, G-Man! One of Laura's and my favorite songs has the lyrics: we're threading a needle with boxing gloves when we try to talk about love...words aren't able to speak of love, like a smile in a whisper does...
ReplyDeleteDistance can (mostly)easily be overcome. It's just a tiny obstacle. But then, being the gypsy I am, what do I know?