A little mixed-breed apple, half red, half yellow, yells this story. A lover and beloved get separated. Their being apart was one thing, but they have opposite responses. The lover feels pain and grows pale. The beloved flushes and feels proud. I am a thorn next to my master's rose. We seem to be two, but we are not.

"Your body is away from me But there is a window open from my heart to yours. From this window, like the moon I keep sending news secretly." -Rumi

Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees ... were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. -Antonio Machado

...Amidst the glorious perfume of the earth,
I dream of love and I sleep alone,
Oh virgin with the beautiful face formed in invory and gold
Whom I weep for still!"

--Sappho

Because I cannot sleep
I make music at night.
I am troubled by the one
whose face has the color of spring flowers.
I have neither sleep nor patience,
neither a god reputation nor disgrace.
A thousand robes of wisdom are gone.
All my good manners have moved a thousand miles away.
The heart and the mind are left angry with each other.
The starts and the moon are envious of each other.
Because of this alienation the physical universe
is getting tighter and tighter.
The moon says, "How long will I remain
suspended without a sun?"
Without Love's jewel inside of me,
let the bazaar of my existence by destroyed stone by stone.
O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names,
You who know how to pour the wine
into the chalice of the body,
You who give culture to a thousand cultures,
You who are faceless but have a thousand faces,
O Love, You who shape the faces
of Turks, Europeans, and Zanzibaris,
give me a glass from Your bottle,
or a handful of bheng from Your Branch.
Remove the cork once more.

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

There is a smile and a gentleness
inside. When I learned the name

and address of that, I went to where
you sell perfume. I begged you not

to trouble me so with longing. Come
out and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground
a spread blanket, flame that's caught

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,
I am inside all of this with my soul.

"you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go"
-Mary Oliver

Photograph

oion to glukumalon ereuthetai akroi ep' usdoi,
akron ep' akrotatoi, lelathonto de malodropees.
ou man eklelathont', all' ouk edunant' epikesthai.

[the bride]
just like a sweet apple that ripens on the uppermost bough,
on the top of the topmost; but the apple-gatherers have forgotten it,
or rather, they haven't altogether forgotten it, but they could not reach it.

-SAPPHO, Fragment 105A V.

Campus Martius

The talk of possibly ice skating in the future got me excited. Then I remembered this beautiful poem the mother of one of my past preschool students wrote:

I used to be afraid of dying.
a canopied nightmare wrapped in
rainbow sheets
soaked in fear of nothing and forever
Id jump out of my bed
and down the steps
into the arms of a mortal mommy
whose hugs would slow down my racing heart
It used to be the threat of nuclear attack
and that last chapter in the bible
that spun me faster than a top.
but death was a for-sure thing…
I knew life wasn’t all swings and slides
but
if old age meant rocking chairs and checkers
I could understand being tired of living/
still… death and its doneness were scary things
and infinity was a burning pyre of options.
There was nothing that I couldn’t imagine getting tired of…
until I saw your smile and your eyes bright and wild
as we ice skated in the middle of the city/
Facing Woodward and our future
u holding on to me
my hands sticking to the freezing rail
people passing in the streak that used to be my life/
I hold you up and let you fall
as my instincts tell me to
we leave only when our hands tremble from cold
my smile frozen/ begging for the warmth of yours in return
and the fear I felt now drips soggy and desperate
so vulnerable to you
so powerless to this force that entered my life
2 months early and right on time.
My winter baby
all cotton and down
You splash a cold breath on my life
as you release my hand
and wake me to renewal
I watch before you land
my young sprite
full of all things living and present
death so vacant and simple
an unworthy rival to the brown eyes peeking under your cap.

e.e. cummings, Poem 92 (of 95)

i carry your heart with me ( i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
you go, my dear, and whatever is done
by only me, is your doing, my darling)

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has meant
and whatever a son will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret, nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide),
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

"You do not come
On this moonless night.
I wake wanting you.
My breasts heave and blaze.
My heart burns up."

-Ono No Komachi

"Making love with you
Is like drinking sea water.
The more I drink
The thirstier I become,
Until nothing can slake my thirst
But to drink the entire sea. "

-Marichiko