Home » Weekly Poems from Poems for Free: An Anniversary Poem and More

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HAPPINESS HANGS LOOSELY ON YOUR LIVES

Happiness hangs loosely on your lives,
A garment that you wear with fortune's blessing.
Praised be both the wisdom and the will
Pressed between the pages of your days,
Years and years of choices amid chances.

For now, this day, the rhapsody revives
Old memories of love beyond expressing,
Returned as music, passionate and still,
That turns and turns with wonder as it plays,
Yearning that refuses trite romances.

There is a place in all love that survives --
Home, where nakedness needs no undressing,
In which, with candor and sufficient skill,
Reason turns away its clear-eyed gaze,
Deferring to the heart, which weeps and dances.

VESTIBULES ARE ALL ONE GETS TO SEE

Vestibules are all one gets to see
As even self must grope through darkened rooms.
Love allows less light than one assumes,
Ever too constrained for clarity.
Nor does one find much light in ecstasy,
Though years replenish what the heart consumes.
In new-found joy the old refrain resumes,
New wonder at the same old mystery.
Each love lights dimly what the heart well knows:
'Tis neither more nor less than what one is
Staring back at one with alien eyes.
Deep beneath a flame that comes and goes
A darkness waits that's neither hers nor his,
Yet is to share when both run out of lies.

I'M SORRY FOR THE WAY I SAY I LOVE YOU

I'm sorry for the way I say I love you.
I know this kind of talk is far too soon.
I cannot stop myself; I just adore you.
And so this truth pronounces its own doom.
But when a truth betrays itself, I wonder:
Could it be that such a truth be true?
Or could the sweet compulsion that I'm under
Be caused in part by ignorance of you?
I know only the truth of what I feel,
Which lies beneath all sanity or rule.
My love for you is deep and rich and real,
Though it may be I simply am a fool.
Time will tell the truth, for if you do
Not want my love, I cannot long love you.

JANUARY

January waits, unsentimental,
Again born into beauty, cruel and kind.
Nor cold nor darkness fools the wily child,
Unweeping in a brutal wind and wild,
As the Earth turns passionless and blind.
Rejoicing in her birth, she dons the mantle,
Yearning to recall what lies behind.

NO MORE FAVORS, PLEASE

No more favors, please!
I'm already choked with people,
Nice people, sweetly moved,
Expecting themselves in the mirror.
Time to look at your watches,
Ease yourselves into lounges,
Enjoy the quiet of taking,
No more intrusive than trees.

MIRROR PROVERBS

--One cannot have what one wants
Unless one wants what one has.

--One cannot love oneself
Unless one's self is loving.

--One cannot control one's temper
Unless one tempers one's control.

--One cannot fail for long
Unless one longs to fail.

--One cannot live in another's shadow
Unless one shadows another.

--One cannot gain another's trust
Unless one trusts another.

--One cannot be contented
Unless one is contented by being.

--One cannot be loving
Unless one loves being.

ALL THE LOVE YOU ASK OF GOD IS HERE

All the love you ask of God is here,
Delivered by yourselves, but made elsewhere,
Eden's legacy, that you might be
Less fearful that your time pass by untouched.
Even after forty years of loving
And sixty years of life, you need no less,
Needing still the kiss that stills the darkness,
Desperate for the one who shares the night.
Long, then, may you love, each giving each
A window to a mirror, in which both
Will see a grace beyond the grace of being,
Rendered into life by your own hand.
Every moment sings in celebration,
Noticed mainly when the hour chimes.
Carillons now clang joyfully in tribute,
Eloquent reminders of your love.