Lessons in love : the both and of it all

Poetic prose from February 2021

Sometimes someone reminds you of a poem you once loved but never understood in that way we are meant to viscerally understand poetry. And then you reread it, maybe months, maybe years, later and it’s all the words you had been searching for to describe that feeling you had no words for that you were feeling deep in your marrow but maybe afraid to admit existed because if you admit it exists it might disappear like a wisp of smoke. But even if it does disappear you know you will have known what that poem felt like under your skin and in your muscles and through every cell of your being. And even with this you know it is not a wisp of smoke but more solid yet malleable like maybe clay or silly putty or play doh. And even so knowing that when not cared for properly these too can become dry and cracked and hard and fade to dust. So you know the tender care you must give to yourself and the words and the feeling and the other and this giving doesn’t feel hard or heavy or like a burden but …