Where Does Love Live?
A poem (inspired by Mary Oliver) about the freedom that comes from feeling fully.
There are things you can’t reach And my fingertips ache for them all day long His heart, his eyes, Him as God. What joy it gives me to try to touch these things, To know That if I could hold All I want In my palm Then He would not be So I find it in his belly When the nothingness of wind Fills him The way it presses Down to the tips of my toes And he stokes the coil of air So that love moves through us. And I find it in his jaw When the rustle of a bush Enlivens him The way it tightens my bones And he pulls me to him So that truth moves through us. And I find it in his feet When the Sirens’ song of mud Beckons him The way he is an old Redwood And he lets me nest So that life moves through us. I feel; across miles and millimeters, I am never done feeling. And — Nothing real in the world Can be felt with your fingers. But sometimes the wind And blue sky Turn to snow That kisses our noses And it becomes us At least, for a moment. They are all in this, too. It is then, My fingertips stop aching And the wink of God Is within reach.
(Inspired by Mary Oliver, “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?”)
(Poetry interpreted by Midjourney, AI)