Enough of Love's Ideal Poems

There's a poetry that comes with everyday life lived together in love
where the curves of one another's lives converge
and offer a tabernacle of shelter for communion
that ebbs and flows like the ocean upon the shore
and where shadows lie exposed in light,
offering the contrast of silence that births words.
Love's grandest words revealed in the beginning
sink into kenotic commonness unspoken
save with a knowing glance,
a comfortable touch of hand on knee.
Rhythm becomes the drying of dishes
that rhymes with the folding of socks,
and love's passion scanned in time stretches out between us
like afternoon delight murmuring into twilight’s slant.  

It is here that love’s sonnet lies--
in the buttering of toast in the morning’s dark
baked earlier in kneaded bread;
in sheets washed and gutters cleaned;
on consolation’s wet shoulder when loved ones die;
and in packages of handkerchiefs shared. 
It’s in emergency blankets and matches in plastic bags;
food for the journey and soup for the week ahead;
chicken broth of boiled marrow for a sick  mother, 
the setting of a celebratory fire. 
Words are but fragile, borrowed breath breathed in;
deeds their offered test of integrity breathed out.
Here is where true love, like poetry, lies--
in the quotidian details where there’s there there.  

                                  ©Tess Lockhart, 2013.  All rights reserved.