August 2022 – The Poetry of Love

I used to be one of those who agreed with Joni Mitchell: “We don’t need no piece of paper from the City Hall, keeping us tied and true.” It took nine years of living together before my wife and I finally got around to making it official. But I found that, once we made the decision, something in our relationship shifted and deepened. I also found that the whole process of planning and performing a wedding (which we did on August 6) defined our relationship and brought me at least to a more heartfelt appreciation and gratitude for the partner that I promised to stay with “until death do us part.”

I am sharing here a poem written a few years ago that I shared at the August Untitled (where Febo was the featured poet). We were not expecting to be there, but we found a moment, between taking our European wedding guests to the airport in Boston and taking off for our honeymoon in Canada, to come out for the open mic and offer this poem.

LIFE BODY BREATH

Nestled like spoons, I am almost inside you.

I don’t know if you are sleeping or just resting, quiet, drifting…

Your beath is slow and shallow, and I follow each inhalation with mine,

Expire as you expire.

I am that that you are.

Life forces us to pull in air,

Recedes in the dying fall that releases it again.

I don’t know if I am sleeping or just floating on a stream of consciousness.

Whenever I remember myself,

I let go –

Let go of my thoughts,

Come into this present moment here, now, with you:

Your scent in my nostrils,

The lingering taste of you on the roof of my mouth, just behind my teeth…

Let go of the sound of our breathing together,

Rumbling slightly off the rhythm, and then together again;

Notice so much skin on skin,

From feet to neck and all in between;

Pay attention to the touch of the fingertips of my right hand on your skin –

One, two, three, four –

Fingers pressing ever so gently into the soft flesh of your belly.

My sight is in darkness,

But the red glow of the body pulsates behind my eyelids.

I am that that you are;

One body, two parts.

Life is here in us:

Precious miracle of heart and skin.

I embrace its presence –

Hip to hip, rib to rib, my left arm under your ear, my toes underneath the arch of your foot –

This is incarnation, the spark of becoming;

That which is I

Close to that which is you;

That which is both, now,

In this sanctified presence,

Alive.

I am that that you are.

Shortly after Untitled in August, when we got back from our honeymoon, we went to an open mic/open canvas event at Mill No. 5, and my wife Lana, who has faithfully accompanied me to many poetry events, decided to write a poem of her own. Her native language is Belarussian, and she speaks German and Russian, as well as English, but this was her first attempt at poetry in English. Since it is a love poem, too, I thought it would merit inclusion here.

SWINGING IN WALTZ

We’ve met each other in a foreign space,

Like Outlander and Fraser with Grace.

After years our feelings gradually increase,

My skin shivering from his touching and kiss.

We are singing, dancing, or hiking or doesn’t matter what,

I love to be in the lake of life at the same spot

And swim in his eyes as in ocean and sky --

No one can explain till when and why.