In celebration of April as National Poetry Month, I will be releasing over the next week or so some poetry I’ve written on love that has lain too long in my drawer.
The first few, shown below, are short and simple, written as a young bride.
In time they grow longer, darker, deeper, exploring the many faces and shapes that love takes as it grows and strengthens, wanes and darkens, matures and celebrates new beginnings.
Now, While
Now
While the love-light of your eyes
Shines upon my face,
And your bare-bodied shadow
Presses close to mine,
Now
With the moonlight and trees
Spreading patterns across our bed,
And the corners of the room
lie dark and drowsy,
Now
Let us kiss and love.
Then
While our bodies still hungrily cling
Let us sleep,
Closely breathing,
Closely dreaming,
Close in love.
Gone
You’re gone!
And though I know
You’ll be back Monday
The word gets caught between
The empty of my arms
Just Asking
We loved
We came to be like
Mirrors, reflecting like
I saw myself
An image in your eye.
When you’re gone
I find myself
And empty likeness
I question, are you gone
Or am I?
Would That Love
Would that love move me once
That it move me far enough
Would that love move me now
In all I do.
For the way is far too strong
That would push against the throng,
Cut me loose to lose myself
In loving you.
Since the day will surely show
When I’ll have to let you go
What a waste to love you then
With clutching arms.
So let me meet your every wish
Make myself a selfless gift
That I fill to overflowing
Loving you.
And when we part, if part we must,
I’ll unclasp in loving trust,
For Love spent us to the full
In every way.
NOTE: This post began a series of posts that originally were supposed to be part of a series of love poems to celebrate April as National Poetry Month. Eventually it morphed into something else–a memoir of our marriage, or an anatomy of love as it evolves over time. Below are all five posts in the series, which seem to cover married love in all of its manifestations: Innocent love, erotic love, disappointed love, love lost, love renewed, and love that lasts. The last one was Freshly Pressed.
Silly Little Love Poems, Unloosed at Last
The Geometry, and Geography, of Love
Other Posts that Include My Poetry
Wheeling away on the Isle of Pines
Deborah J. Brasket 
Love these. Thank you for sharing your heart and your moments.
Thank you, Normandie! Glad to have them out of the close.t 🙂
I “love” the way you juxtapose these sweet (and lovely) poems with all those romantic images from your past.
Thank you, Kelly!
Love is my absolute favorite subject to write about. I ‘loved’ what your innocent self did here, how she explores and shows us ‘lurkers’ how sweet and tender those early days are..
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed. I love that “innocent self” too. She’s almost like a child to me now. Someone I remember sweetly with fond memories.
Is that you in the pictures? Wonderful poems! I’m a “young bride” now, and I’ve never written anything like that before! I’m really impressed. I especially love “The world gets caught between/The empty of my arms.” So poignant. I really loved this post.
Yes, that’s me and my husband in the photos–long, long ago! So glad you enjoyed the poems. And so happy you are a young bride–I’m in awe of young love–nothing else like it. It only gets better. But only after getting much harder. After working through the hard stuff. More of that coming in another post.
Sweetly beautiful… 🙂
Thank you!
Beautiful pictures both in form and in photos.
just clicked on this as a related post…thank you for the step back into time in both poetry and photography.
peace