poetry ed. 1

on love, life, longing

this is a poetry edition¹! i’ve got you a round-up of poems i discovered & revisited this week. no surprises they’re all about love (aren’t the best poems about just that?), through different lenses, with some scribbles on the feels that were felt.

✨

1. “Of Love”
- by Mary Oliver

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some — now carry my revelation with you —
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world — its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself — I imagine
this is how it began.

it reminded me of moments and days and phases when i’m able to love in full and how much brighter and lighter life then feels, and of acts of kindness and compassion towards everyone, especially strangers, particulary when hate and judgment abounds. callback to buddhism 101 always knowing the hack to a good life.

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2. “Miss you. Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love”
- by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Do not care if  you bring only your light body.
Would just be so happy to sit at the table
and talk about the menu. Miss you.
Wish we could bet which chilis they’ll put
on the cubes of tofu. Our favorite.
Sometimes green. Sometimes red. Roasted
we always thought. But so cold and fresh.
How did they do it? Wish you could be here
to talk about it like it was so important.
Wish you could. Watched you on the screens
as I was walking, as I was cooking. Wished you
could get out of the hospital. Can’t
bring myself to order our dish and eat it
in the car. Miss you laughing. Miss
you coming in from the cold or one
too many meetings. Laughing. I’ll order
already. I’ll order seven helpings, some
dumplings, those cold yam noodles that you
like. You can come in your light
body or skeleton or be invisible I don’t even
care. Know you have a long way to travel.
Know I don’t even know if it’s long
at all. Wish you could tell me. What
you’re reading. If you’re reading.
Miss you. I’m at the table in the back.

old friendships, missed connections, the what-ifs, and the painful absences. with some sweet, sweet nostalgia, and revisiting memories through tangible items, something you can touch, and be transported immediately back, to them. sometimes it’s a very specific smell. sometimes it’s your favorite song. or that specific fruit we hunted for hours that langorous afternoon. other times it’s a sticky note from you that’s still in my wallet, which i haven’t yet thrown away.

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3. “Missed Time”
- by Ha Jin

My notebook has remained blank for months
thanks to the light you shower
around me. I have no use
for my pen, which lies
languorously without grief.
Nothing is better than to live
a storyless life that needs
no writing for meaning—
when I am gone, let others say
they lost a happy man,
though no one can tell how happy I was.

finding contentment without validation, how important it is to be witnessed, to be seen, to be understood by another, of when solitude becomes isolation, and hand on beating heart to rest the anxiety of being forgotten. the relief of missing out, mixed with a heavy dose of wanting to be wanted.

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4. “The Thing Is”
- by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

healing. of healing, of repairing, of putting all the pieces back, but in different ways each time, and jumping into the sea anew, disregard for safety, heart on the sleeve, to live in full & to break down all over again only to keep saying yes, yes, yes, i will².

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5. “Dedh Kamre Ki Ek Duniya Mein”
- by Ammar Iqbal

डेढ़ कमरे की एक दुनिया में
एक बिस्तर है कुछ किताबें हैं
आने-जाने का एक दरवाज़ा
ख़ैर आता भी कौन है घर में
नामलेवा रफ़ाक़तों के अमीं
दूर के कुछ क़रीबी रिश्तेदार
कुछ नए और कुछ पुराने यार
ला-उबाली से चार-छ: शायर
एक ज़हनी मरीज़ा कद्दाला
कुछ ख़वातीन जिनका ज़िक्र नहीं
ख़ैर मुझको भी कोई फ़िक्र नहीं
आएं-जाएं कोई बला से मेरी
दोस्ती हो गई क़ज़ा से मेरी
अब यही तौर चाहिए मुझको
चाय एक और चाहिए मुझको।³

the little things, being content, own terms, no regrets, shared life, or not, all within.

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will you write to me, if something in here made you feel too?

until next time & new reads!

🌻

~ rufus

1. all images are from the art collection called “The Lens of Desire: Eye Miniatures (ca. 1790–1810)” which are in the public domain, courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art

2. when i was younger, love poems always meant romantic love, but now love feels so much more expansive and i am not so sure the poets only ever meant to be such :)

3. only befitting that some of these poems have been shared with me by loved ones (which is a very top-tier love language, if i may say) <3