A Love Song

A Love Song - William Carlos Williams What have I to say to you when we shall meet? Yet - I lie here thinking of you. The stain of love is upon the world yellow, yellow, yellow It eats into the leaves smears with saffron The horned branches that lean heavily against a smooth purple sky. There is no light- Only a honey-Thick stain that drips from leaf to leaf and limb to limb spoiling the colors of the whole world. I am alone the weight of love has buoyed me up until my head knocks against the sky. See me! My hair is dripping with Nectar Starlings carry it on their black wings See at last, my arms and hands are lying idle How can I tell if I will ever love you again as I do now? Love changes. It changes more than the weather. It changes in the blink of an eye and without warning. One moment we are in rapture wondering what the next moment will bring like Williams wondered. The next, we are moving on. Does the familiar ruin romantic love? I always tell people that love is a decision. You have that split second when you just know. For Best Friend it was in Daley Plaza. We had reconnected after years of just random hanging out time. I wasn't feeling well, a personal physical thing. I could tell she was worried about me because she was handling me with kid gloves and that's just not her MO. Suddenly in the middle of November she took her shoes off and went wading in the middle of water and then took her wet feet to pound out a pattern on the cement. I knew right then that I'd know her every day of my life. I loved so much about her energy that I wanted to be near it and I could be whoever I was forever and she'd be my cheerleader. I could fly high on the swing and not worry about falling off. I was thinking about that decision of love when I was reading that Williams poem. Years ago I was in New York working, playing, being in trouble at a crossroads in my life and I fell hard for a bridge playing New York intellectual type. He was so foreign to other men I had known. We had hours and I mean hours of conversation and everything he told me I drank in like a sponge. I wanted to be so near to him that my hands would get jittery knowing he was on his way to find me. I love the way he played with my hair and when he kissed me a little piece of me was home. On Summer days like today I close my eyes and wish I was again in New York, staying at the Mayflower, putting on a sun dress and taking a long cool summer bath wondering where the evening would lead. There was no decision there, it was just summer love, moments I carry with me like I carry the smell of my mother's baking at Christmas, the sound of my son lost in laughter, the heart pang of love's lost. Anne DeFranco wrote in some beautiful lyric, "I don't know why red fades before blue, it just does." I don't know why summer love gets lost the in fast pace of our lives. I just know that it does. In my room, in my tall dresser, under a few lace trimmed girl things is a hotel room key from the Mayflower, room 213 and like Pat Conroy wrote "I wish there were two lives afforded to every man and woman. The life they were fated to live and the secret life that sustains me now." We all have a secret life. We all have those dormant desires that will come back alive in a piece of art, in a song, in the way the wind smells in the summer in Central Park in New York. How lucky we are to have those moments, thousands of them that make up the miracle that is life. Isn't it a miracle? I remember calling Best Friend the day I met the bridge player. I wouldn't trade a moment of it. Being part of art every day is part of finding that part of me and living it every day. I have a song of New York in my heart a song of freedom carried on the wings of pigeons I sing that song in the shower and when the rain seeps in through my skin and drowns my heart Singing that song breathes life into all I do it makes me a better mother a better friend a better lover a better daughter of the world. How do you thank someone for giving you the melody to the song of your heart? you simply love them forever. - Me If you have an interest in my art, you can find it at ETSY.com under the seller name POETSUMMER. I also sell my work on ebay under the same seller name and at my E commerce site at Summerpoet.com. I have some amazing news soon and can't wait to share it with you. All I have to do is dedicate a few hours to finishing up some work here. Carrie.