Unless I Love

Unless I love you
The way I would have loved you
In kinder times,
Love you with fire
That blazes all night
And dies as happy smoke
Rising, swirling with the light
Of grey mornings,
Unless I love you
This way and all other ways,
As if you loved me,
As if we have met,
and you are close enough
for me to follow the trails
of your hair,
and for you to catch
the embers
of my terrible dreams,
Unless I love you
with this fearful heart,
then I would not be able to love.

Unless I love you
With the stillness
Of heaving mountains,
Or the grace
Of raging oceans,
Love you despite this
Relentless hunger,
Love you in spite
Of being alone to wander
The domains of my soul,
Unless my love should
pervade my mind
Like the aroma of rain
On dusty pavements
That summons memories
and melancholy —
Then to love you is to love
the fate of flowers
and hold on
to the promise of solstice

Unless this love withstands
the desperate brown
of my parched lands, and
strive amidst the hardened laughter
of women inside shanties,
Should love grow
unbridled as I march towards
the surreal phalanx of
men armed with uncertainty,
Unless i dare to love you amidst
the chaotic plan of the universe,
close my eyes in peace
and stir in your passing,
If I do not love you with my history
and the present of my tears,

Then I must love you
in hope.

For I would like it
that when I die,
and people will say,
“She was not really the writer
she claimed, or
she could never stay long
in a job;
she was always the dreamer
and her dreams
were too bright, and
she was forever wandering,
and often afraid,
shifting roads, shifting seas,”
They will pause
and furrow their brows,
as if feeling for the pea
in the folds of their memories.
And in the still light of moments
a faint smile will spread
on their face as they say:

Ay, but how she loved!

And how she loved us.

She loved as if each moment
Were the first and the last.
She loved with a heart so big
It took in both joy and sorrow.
Her love so immense
She gave everything
To know drowning,
To be burned and to rage
To cackle and scream
To be still in crying
To be scared and lost,
Ah yes, these were her constants
Love was her fated savior
And how she loved,
How she loved him!

–delunna