The Poetry Project

The Fire of Love

The Fire of Love

       "Kindle the fire of love and burn away all things,

       then set thy foot into the land of the lovers."

         ~ Bahá'u'lláh

Tonight, the horizon burns ocher with the turning

of the earth away from the sun.

I find am lonely only when I forget to close my eyes

and breath into the warmth behind my chest bone.

The trees, rustling, turn amber in the dimming glow.

A mockingjay mimics the call a cat, yowling in the bushes.

Loneliness is an imagined state, a belief in isolation

instead of the interconnectedness of all things.

A yellow ladybug crawls from a blade of grass

onto the back of my hand, then takes flight.

I am not waiting. I expect no lover to find me. Love is living,

is walking wayward paths and expecting nothing.

Stars struggle to alight in the fabric of the mulberry-hued sky,

while the last sliver of sun vanishes behind evergreen hills.

I will open and witness and allow what is to be to be.

In this way, I discover my lover as I would a bright stone

among grey pebbles, as an unexpected offering. I will

discover a blurring of desires like day melting into night.

But the ensuing dark is cool and comforting,

and everything is now, and is just as it should be.

________________________

Note: This poem was written in response to @MatthewJade's prompt, which was the quote presented at the beginning of the poem. I don't know that I fully captured the concept of the quote (which is quite poetic in and of itself), but this is what it inspired me to write.