On the Continent of Love Lost

author’s note:

Someone once asked if I ever wrote love poems...

They’re all love poems!

Happy Thanksgiving.


ON THE CONTINENT OF LOVE LOST

She said
her heart had exiled her writing
to the island of love lost.

But I told her
that island can be a continent.
Here’s the difference:

on the island
when we write of love lost
we write of the garden lost

but on the continent
we realize
we must leave our gardens
in order to grow.

On the island, we write of how
we long for the return
of the one lost

but on the continent
we write of delving down
to find ourselves again.

On the island
we write of wounds still open

but on the continent
we write of mending those wounds
and in the process
healing old deep wounds.

On the island
we're afraid of losing--
of losing again

and on the continent
we're afraid of the same--
afraid of a love
we can not escape
at its beginning--

a love we can not hold
at its end.

But on the continent
we don’t try to escape
when we know we can’t
and don’t try to hold
when we know we can’t.

All this I wrote to her
but then admitted:

I don't always live
the “continent way”

but when I do, I'm able to lay
a wreath of gratitude
on gardens lost
while I celebrate
a present-time blessed
by the education gained
through the losses
of my past.

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