I have always
gone for the throat of love.
Right? I mean,
what else is there, really?
See, you are wiley…
you have your snares, your wire-traps…
but you know your way
around these woods
you touch those red trunks thick
and feel the moss and know
when that woody heart is open
and thirsty and available
you sense the wondering wildlife
hid nearby and hushed,
and know just how to move thus
and not startle the deer
and how to whistle for the birds,
you trill in practiced ease, that’s you…
touching terrain, scheduling territories,
reading maps and visiting…
spreading out your hunter’s eye
in webs and nets
and next thing you know, why
love is there and snapped
neatly on your leash and sat,
ears cocked, so it knows to roll over,
and speak, and play dead
(with a smile).
But me? I have eyes that see, inside
those scented trunks concealed with fringey moss,
and ears that hear inside the hearts of harts that crouch so still
and hidden there so neat and underneath the wings of birds.
But I don’t have body, right?
When I move, I snap twigs and crash,
noise and blunder, all bleeding desire
and wet contagious bonding sticky heart
that catches on the thorns you deftly step around
and tears on twigs and snags on gnarly cedar fingers
and then clutches at the brush to cover
my embarrassing naked need of something other
my need of what I was not even given
the dignity of denial,
denial of my heart-felt soft request…
like a tree not granted the dignity of a forest.
So I just jump que sera sera, aiming for
the things I see inside the hearts of trees and
the things I hear singing inside the flight of blackbirds in the night…
and the humming of the bees
…and find myself missing…
…over and over and over…
and thumping hard on stones and tumbled
scratched and hotly embarrassed
by yet another fruitless
leap of faith while moments
walks right past me,
walk right thru me!
I imagine you, your skillful
deft dread lilting steps
and secret smile of success,
you equipped and given grace that matches…
and moving
in the forest ways
and easy and always
so at home.
Finally I pick myself up,
and listen, look, and get a bead
on that pulsing place so secret there,
the tender hollow of its neck,
love,
and I get myself ready to go
for the throat of love once more,
and missing take my deep compelled encore
in hope that I will
catch my quarry, or am still
and never need to long
or ever jump again.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
I love this, I can sense the feeling behind it, and within it
Thank you so much! 🙂
your welcome!! keep up the good work
Reblogged this on Jessica A Bruno (waybeyondfedup).
So beautifully done, love!! There was a whisper and lilt of knowing and Sight as the lines unfolded.
And this:
“But me? I have eyes that see, inside…”
Well…you know…<3
Thank you Sis!!
So this poem…it is written in such a way that I hope the reader always identifies themselves as the “I”, and the other person (persons) as the “you”. This poem is my own obtuse answer to the questions of connection and singularity that I was posing some days back on Grace Notes, how we all feel connected and know we are, and we all are tragically alone in the midst of that when connection flees and we are left there stark and untouched.
Everyone thinks that everyone else is so good at love…or in the metaphor, is so deft, so able, Daniel Boones and Jim Bridgers of the ways of the heart and the art of catching love…and everyone thinks themselves so inept, so clumsy and all thumbs.
And then I watch how Mama is so good at loving others, catching them in Her webs loving and firm…
I think the truth is we all might be the “I” and the “you”.
One interesting thing about the poem is the use of hunting or tracking as the central vehicle of voice…”going for the throat”, “snares” “traps”. It produces a bit of a squirm inside, for we really don’t think of love in those terms, as hunters almost always kill their quarry once they catch them.
And yet…and yet…it really is a hunt. We hide, we hide behind what we call ourselves, we hide in our forests, in our trees, and we also when we love someone are given eyes to see them, there…plain as day and yet still needing skill to lay hold of. But we are also often denied the very skill in tracking that our heart’s eyes have in seeing, and so we do hunt, and capture…and in that are ourselves captured and held there, helpless in the snare of our lover’s eyes and tethered to them forever…or at least that is what we hope.
And yes, death is there, isn’t it? Death to ourselves, our own wishes and desires when they run contrary to those of whom we love and cherish and the clash is often even battle. But there is a beautiful passage in a love song written by the wisest man in the world that speaks of a love that is stronger than death…“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”
It interests me…who it is that readers have identified with.
This was the poem I came looking for this morning after seeing it on your facebook page. The imagery in this is amazingly crazy, beautiful. I can feel the underpinnings of it without completely being able to lay a finger on it. Does that make any sense at all? So much to this, much more than I can say right now. I’ll be a thinkin on it today. xo
That is COMPLETELY the essence of this lil poem’s structure!
It is about dysphoria…it is about how you have body that is yours, inspite of maybe not liking this or that part/aspect…but me? I HAVE no body! I am in one, whose it is mystifies me to this day…God’s I guess.
But I do haffa live in it.
So knowing that, you can go back and read…and thus understand.
See…most creatures who live in this body would not “hunt” the way that we do…so you can imagine it written from that perspective by one of them…oh wait, they would not even think to write in the first place lol.
xoxoxoo