What is Love?       (Poem 10)

 

love love love love

love is all you need

love is all you need (Beatles)

 

When I consider love, I think they were right.

I think the most important love is for ourselves

because we project how we feel onto others.

 

How we feel is how we act.

If we feel mad and angry, we treat others

that way. But the reverse is also true.

 

If we want to love someone else

we need to first love ourselves.

 

This goes beyond carnal love into loving our home, our garden

and our neighbors and their neighbors and the next town and country.

 

Which brings up a directive that seems obvious: If you’re angry don’t act.

If you feel love consider acting but not always…gotta be discriminate.

 

But love is also little things

like Colleen laughing when I pretended

to be a big awkward bird flapping his wings

when I snuck up near her at lunch today.

 

Or thanking me for compromising and changing the

way we pack things and the floor matt configuration

in our campervan.

 

And sending the email to a mutual friend that neither of us

wanted to do while I was busy writing poems.

 

Love is being able to be comfortable when you let down your

guard and are the person that very few outsiders get to see.

 

Love is also being able to be still with each other and being

comfortable in silence.