Sunday, February 7, 2010

Poetry Train Monday - 138 - Falling With Abandon


With Valentine's Day approaching, here's an ode to love, which I wrote this evening after indulging in watching ballet pas de deux on You Tube.



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Falling With Abandon


Love yearns
Yearns like the sea
The shore always slipping through
Fingers of foam

Its absence cr-
-acks
cracks the heart
Cracks like a dry lake bed

Love refuses
Will never give in
Love scrambles like tiny turtles
Scrambling from the sand for their watery refuge

It stalks with lethal prowess
Stalks like the panther gazing
From the shadows

Love competes
Love collides like
Tangled antlers

It shyly flirts
Flirts like the cocked head of a kitten

Love swirls
Swirls in the pit of the stomach
Swirls like dervish snow squalls

It bursts from the breast
Bursts like startled flamingos

Love burns without warning
Love burns like orange flame
Flame wrenched from trees by blue lightening

It falls with abandon
The abandon of a glacier calving
Into the open arms
Of the sea

Love kicks with springy delight
Rambunctious delight
The springing leap of young goats

It protects
Love protects like a bear's
Swiping claw

Love soothes like the tongue
The tongue of a doe nudging her fawn

Its joy spreads
Spreads through the cosmos
Spreads like smiling stars
Stars revolving in the vast night

- Julia Smith, Feb. 7, 2010

Panther photo by Liorah_Lleucu

The Accidental Novelist says Happy Valentines Day in the tangled antlers of love!

An Aesthetic Bard says Felt like going up an ethereal escalator to ultimately reach the “smiling stars, stars revolving in the vast night”.

Janet says Love truly is multifaceted, sorrow and joy tangled together in an emotion no one is immune to!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Julia! Long time no "see." :-)

Happy Valentines Day in the tangled antlers of love!

Sasidharan Cheruvattath said...

I loved this one, woven in beautiful shades and with the many faceted images of love. Beautiful poetry, felt like going up an ethereal escalator to ultimately reach the “smiling stars, stars revolving in the vast night”. Thank you:)

Janet said...

Beautiful, Julia. Love truly is multifaceted, sorrow and joy tangled together in an emotion no one is immune to!

Must have been some ballet :)

Akelamalu said...

You're so good at this!

madeline d. murray said...

What a beautiful compendium of love's varied faces. In this moment, my favorite is

Swirls in the pit of the stomach
Swirls like dervish snow squalls

But this is a poem I could read again and again and be enchanted at every stanza.

M. said...

Happy belated #3, Julia! and hooray on multiculti art int he sidebar. That may be the first portrait of the woman for whom the Taj Mahal was built I've ever seen.

Andy Sewina said...

Flirts like the cocked head of a kitten. It most be love!!

Travis Cody said...

Lots of interesting imagery in this one.

Felicity said...

All the pictures you've woven with your words are so brilliant and beautiful. Great poem.