"You sound like you're in love!
Who is it!? Spill, friend!!!" ~ someone trying to figure out why Love is
my nearest companion these days
Too many days slipped away
into mourning that left me weak, closed
off and small
wilted and withered into a woman I did
not want to be
unable, unwilling to Love
unable, unwilling to Hurt
Too many ways to avoid risk and miss
the reward
of touch, a kind smile, a tender kiss
on cheek, on lip
or to close off from admiring eyes and
hands
and to miss the magic and mojo
of conjurers skilled in bringing out
the best in me
Love kept knocking, seeking, asking me
to come out to play, to live in full
view
to trust that if I were ever
hurt/betrayed/wounded again
I would survive--again--and Love would
meet me
at the door, hold my hand/hug me close
apply what poultice my soul needed to
try--again
This memory is why Love is my nearest
companion
these days, a comfortable wrap/cool
glass of water
a sip of sunshine on College Avenue
sand sliding through beach-worn fingers
on Cape Cod
Laughter on the other end of a phone
call
Poetry at Ruta Maya late into the night
mics hot from the breath of poets
a walk in Long Park/a cuddle with a zen
Yorkie
who knows nothing except I am the one
who opens
the bag with food in it
I have not forgotten that Love
cries for little 3-year-old girls found
dead
or thousands of stomach-bloated
starving Somali children
or that Love aches for
justice/righteousness
or that Love is not simply simple
pleasures
but ferocious She-bear protective
of those who cannot protect themselves
That, too, is what has returned in
me...
You keep prying into my heart/wondering
how I got this happy/why letting go and
falling into Love's
wide-open arms cracked me open/why I am
not
bitter/withdrawn/afraid--still
how I come again to the possibility of
betrayal
with utter faith that Love lives
You keep wondering the name of my
Beloved
who is priming the pump/drawing the
redemption out of my center
who holds the map to my interior
country
who knows my name that no one else
knows
How Love has pushed/prodded her way
into my imprisoned soul/flipped the
locks
and waved me free
You keep asking "Who do you
LOVE!!!????"
Love, please....
Look in the nearest mirror
point at the woman/the man you see
there--
and say your name.
© Valerie Bridgeman
August 17, 2011
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