LOVE POEMS 

 After love and fear, there’s pride;
After tears, the night;
After all the words are gone,
A chair with just one light.
After memories, the dream
That you will come home safe;
After sleep, another day
Of waiting for my life.
After hope, the happiness
Of thinking of your love;
After moments of despair
A stone no thought can move.
After all the sacrifice,
The hunger and the pain,
The passions and the promises,
The losses and the gains,
There’s nothing but my love for you,
Which waits upon the wind
To bring you from the barricades
That now you must defend. 

After you leave, I will become a tree
Alone on a hillside, loving wind and sun,
Waiting for you to return home to me
Though centuries of lonely stars may run.
I’ll grow tall and give lots of shade,
Sheltering birds and other bright-eyed things.
Pleased with all the progress that I’ve made,
I’ll spread my leafy branches out like wings.
But oh! Every moment of every day
I’ll miss you with the  passion of the wind,
Gazing endlessly upon the way
That without you must empty, empty wind.

Do not love me yet, for I
Am still a slender moon,
A scimitar about the heart
Too sharp to touch too soon.
Before I’m touched I need to grow
More full in golden light;
I need to smile upon my earth
And rule some patch of night.
I need to know what roads and fields
Lie in my domain
And dull my brand new ecstasies
With sophomoric pain.
I need the love of some blank boy
As cold and dark as me,
That we might grope in ignorance
And fear of what might be.
And then, when I’m a silver bowl
And know what I can hold,
Then, then, perhaps, we could try love
If you are not too old. 

Do you want me? What’s the matter?
You’re afraid some door will close?
You want the scent without the rose?
The moans of love without the chatter?
You think our love might be a tomb,
The only exit through my pain?
You’d rather put things off again
To give your fantasies some room?
You think: she’s great, but in a while
I might get bored? Or something better,
Filling out a tighter sweater,
Might flash me a quick come-on smile?
You don’t want to be tied just yet
To just one future, just one kiss?
You think about all you might miss
And hold out for a better bet?
Well, fine! But then why do you haunt
Me like a jackal night and day?
Why, when my interest seems to stray,
Are you so sure of what you want?
 Why, when I dare so much as laugh
At some guy’s jokes, you go ballistic,
Nasty, borderline sadistic,
As if somebody touched your stuff?
And yet when I hook on to you,
You will not let yourself be mine,
Take out your fears and draw a line
Between what you and I can do?
But freedom must be mutual,
And it takes two for one embrace.
You can’t both love and freedom chase,
Unless you would adore a fool. 

Dreams do come true, but only when
They make it through despair,
Limping into everyday
Transformed beyond repair.
No dream would be a dream if it
Could pass for something real,
Nor would we sail for paradise
Would it its shoals conceal.
So it is with love: the dream
Long longed for, now possessed,
Must be a dream no longer, but
An emperor undressed.
Stark naked it must come to us
In unaccustomed shame,
And we must take it in our arms
And love it all the same.
And we must love love as it is
That dreams might still come true,
Mangled into miracles
To make our lives anew.

Each truth is just a scrim across the darkness.
We cannot see what most we’d like to know.
We drive among sheer cliffs in pale moonlight
Unsure of where we are or where to go.
When we allow our heads to make our choices,
We lose because of what we cannot see.
When we give way and let desire take us,
We lose because we want what cannot be.
We inch along the dream-lit rocky ridges
Knowing always, always we must lose.
The end for all is darkness everlasting,
And so it matters less which road we choose.
What matters is the beauty of sheer being;
The gifts we have and those we will become;
The ecstasy of loving so completely
That we ourselves are mo re than minds can plumb.
Love well and know that  love must end in pain.
Be a fool and pay the unmarked price.
Be generous of self, and passion gain:
One who never loses, loses twice. 

Even though we fight a lot, I love you.
We fight, I think, because the stakes are high.
I sometimes get so mad I cannot stand you,
But underneath my anger I could cry.
I have an uncontrolled need to control you,
To be your only destiny and guide.
I know it isn’t fair to try to mold you,
But my poor love’s entangled in my pride.
Ah, love! Please love  me even in my fury,
Which rises like a tide  beneath the moon.
I plead before my only judge and jury:
I want to change, but know change won’t come soon.
Love finds it hard to let the loved one be
The person who is loved so passionately. 

Everything I’ve done, I’ve done
Only for your love.
Everything I am, I am
In hopes your heart will move.
I know that you love someone else,
But while you’re away,
I’ll love you just as though our love
Would last till you are grey.
Till you and I are grey, my love,
And all our days are done,
I’ll love you just as I do now;
Your heart’s my only home. 

Fate is oft the filament of passion,
Illumined by the force of its fierce flow.
For love, far more than chance, may fortunes fashion,
The unwilled will that wills the world we know.
Years break, yet love ma intains the tides below.
Of love, fate is the mo st precise expression,
Nor could one find a more complete confession,
Even as good tidings come and go.

H e cares only that I’m happy,
E ven were I not with him.
If some seek on the wind love’s traces,
Some seek out the love within.
All my pleasures are his treasures,
N or does he crave joy alone.
All have claim on his compassion;
N o dark soul is on its own.
G iving thus, so naturally,
E ach day he lights the love in me,
Like candles on a sunlit stone.

How can I have a fight with my best friend?
The mountain blows, the landscape is destroyed.
A desert where there once were fields and gardens.
Black lava where flowers once brought joy.
And then shoots of grass come through the blackness;
Slowly love asserts itself again.
He calls, I cry, we go through days of whispers,
And fields once more grow lush in sun and rain.
Ah! But now I’m fearful of the mountain:
I walk by trembling, set for it to blow.
Life’s beautiful, but also very painful;
I have the strength to  love, now that I know. 

How can I know so surely that I’ll love you
No matter what the future has in store?
Time is like a cave in which our torches
Show only the circumference of our minds.
But love is will far more than it is passion,
Though passion may at first sustain the will.
One chooses love the way one chooses faith
Because that is the way that heaven lies.
My love for you is vaster than the ocean,
More rich in loveliness than coral seas.
I would no more relinquish it than let go
Willingly the precious gift of life.

How often are things simply clear and right?
Each day we come to moments of despair.
Love is something wonderfully there,
Even in the blackest hours of night.
No one can tell why one of all the rest
Makes our flower open to the sun.
In truth we could love almost anyone.
Choosing, though, does not involve a test.
How often does an angel touch our skin,
Altering forever who we are?
Every passion fades, but love’s a star
Lit by holy fires deep within.

I am afraid to love, and yet I love you.
My fear is like a wall I walk right through.
The wall is there, and yet it doesn’t stop me.
I need it still, and yet I still need you.
I know someday we will be in a field
Surrounded by the blessing of the sky.
I’ll dance with all the freedom of pure joy,
Needing you without a reason why.
But now I’m still afraid that I might lose you,
That you might not acce pt my desperate need.
You make me laugh and cry and be completely.
You are the flower, I the slender reed.