I Left Firewood

I Left Firewood

In my poems, I let eloquence have its say,

and wisdom too and mirth,

for they can be needed companions

as you navigate this dimension and others

Wherever you have dreamed of going,

I have camped there,

and left firewood in anticipation

of your arrival

Try this someday: When you are packing or moving

any simple object around

imagine your Beloved’s hand

as your own.

And then it might become it,

if just for a second

but a wondrous, true moment

like that

would be enough

for the integration to begin -

the melding of you and light.

             One of Pablo Neruda's most popular love sonnets reads: “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.” Sometimes I think true love is wanting someone to always be there with you, regardless of what you're doing, regardless if there's anything planned. Notice how Hafiz says a "simple object", which is often how love itself is realized - the day-to-day happenings just seem richer by being together. Sometimes, that's how love continues too, you're together again "just for a second", when your mind is lost on a long drive, during the tail end of your dream right before an alarm interrupts, or glancing through rainfall obscuring a windowpane.

"I think if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts." - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenia

Tell Her About It, (1983) Billy Joel