Love, Poetry, Quotes

The Instant When Love Begins

by JustinLeave a Comment on The Instant When Love Begins

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

– from Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

Love, Poetry

I Don’t Want To Lose

by JustinLeave a Comment on I Don’t Want To Lose

I don’t want to lose a single thread
from the intricate brocade of who you are.
I want to remember and adore all that is you.
Which is why I am lying awake, sleepy
but not sleepy enough to give it up.
Just now, a moment years from now, I hope:
the early morning light, the deft, sweet
gesture of your hand
reaching for me.

– Based on a poem by Mary Oliver

Love, Poetry

A Voice From I Don’t Know Where

by JustinLeave a Comment on A Voice From I Don’t Know Where

It seems you love this world very much.
“Yes, I said. “This beautiful world.”

And you don’t mind the mind, that keeps you
busy all the time with its dark and bright wonderings?
“No, I’m quite used to it. Busy, busy,
all the time.”

And you don’t mind living with those questions,
I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer?
“Actually, they’re the most interesting.”

And you have a person in your life whose hand
you like to hold?
“Yes, I do.”

It must surely, then, be very happy down there
in your heart.
“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

– Mary Oliver

(I ache to hold your hand again…)

Poetry

Dead Reckoning

by JustinLeave a Comment on Dead Reckoning

They say birds always find their way back home
but home is a nowhere – a memory; a never was.

Do wings remember spaces in the air
the way we might a place? A cathedral square?

How do you fly back to that? Away from
a tomb of fears, this place yearning for you…

Some years ago, I lay bright flowers on
my father’s grave. Years later, I saw

my grandfather’s ashes taken by the
roots of roses.

I am not myself nor have I ever been
something apprehending the sun

and other bright celestial objects
thinking: this is a tapestry in orbit

around me. I am completely convinced that
we may have been the last creatures to discover

how to be in the world. My heart grows wild.
My future children brush past me in the darkness.

Their chattering voices fill my ears and
then my chest and I cannot hold it in.

I am always coming home.