I did not know myself.
I thought I could save you;
I needed to save myself.
I tried to vanquish your fears;
I had not conquered my own.
I wanted to walk the path with you;
I could not find my way.
I felt that I loved you;
I did not love myself.
Thus am I learning
Love’s true nature.
A note about these poems…
I don’t so much write poems as tease the words out of a notion. A poem may begin with a couplet or no more than a few words and partial lines, but I sense a fuller form and know this form’s intention is a poem. Often, I’ll churn the kernel around in my mind for a while before sitting down to write. Othertimes, I know its feel, but not all its words. I’ll know its intent, but not necessarily its meaning. Often, this form seems not to exist within my mind, or even within my being, but comes from somewhere else. Marilyne, my spirit-guide, tells me, “you realise you’re just channeling ancient wisdom.” That makes sense to me. I don’t create a poem; the poem bids me to set it down.
When these forms come, they almost always result in a finished poem so long as I have a medium on which to let the words flow, skirmish and cavort. It’s the teasing out that is the most interesting part of the journey. Often I arrive at destinations unimagined by the initial inspiration.
Learning reflects on my relationship with Staci, and how much I learned about love through all the years it took us to discover our true nature. Learning began with a couple raw couplets that came to me while bicycling and contemplating that relationship. By the time I got home, the poem was almost fully formed, but required a fair bit of shaking out to get the words down just right. Learning is the first poem to come to me in quite this fashion.
I love this!!
The nature of our love mirrors who we are ….God’s perfect tool for leading us deeper into beauty and perfection.
Takes a while to see this though, doesn’t it?
Thanks, Antoinette!
it is indeed a good one, but compelled me to think r v the true learners, do we learn, when does the learning stop… why love and learning go hand in hand?
Perhaps love and learning go hand in hand because we are willing to go through the fires for love, but for little else…. it helps us stay the course?
Hi: Enjoyed your poems and your explanation about how poetry happens. My experience is similar.
A poem rushing out of me today
I stand in its way
A rock in the waterfall’s path
Immovable.
The torrent rushes around me
Undeterred.
@Lakshmi — I think you nailed it. 🙂