This I Know To Be Love

There is a gentle caress of sunlight through the trees, which blows in whispers of gold and ivory;

the pumpkin-patch leaves wiggle and beam down at me in their death,

and this I know to be love.

There is a mother with honey in her eyes and tea in her fingers, when she holds my hand I feel the weight of the world being taken from me,

she paints my soul in shillings on blank canvas paper and teaches me how to be alive;

this woman I know, she is love.

There is a lady on the other side of the country; her hair is gray with many snowfalls and she makes biscuits out of memories,

her laugh is the basis of all good things and she is the caper of the prairies, she is also love.

In the mirror there is a girl who is learning how to learn, she is cold from many things but warm from many others.

I know this girl very well because I see her everyday, she is the face that will always look back at me, and when she is happy, I know that she is love.

I have heard of the love in which my heart becomes a basket for another to carry,

it flops about in its hamper until the cloth is all bloody; this is not a proper podium

for my love to rest upon.

My love was not made to place in someone’s hands; it will sit in my chest,

propped up by my bones and sheltered by my flesh. Love, I know, is not only one thing;

it films over my world and makes shape of my pain.