Oh, warm world!
Let me feel you
And remember
Not the cold,
disenfranchised days
of adulthood!
Let me say yes
To more of that
which I wish to say no!
Full hellos and
Not
the empty ones,
Beats and rhythms,
Intricate and strong,
Like the spiderwebs
I cautiously avoid
In my mornings,
in waking!
I feel,
oh, warm world,
And you teach me, if I let you:
That love is a cool compress in the summer sun;
Is both a deadening and a heightening
of the senses;
Is keeping me just as warm as this climate;
Is keeping me just as sane as this pill;
Is like the moss beneath the cool, wayward;
rock, glowing green, defying laws;
And love
is the give when all is take;
Is the poem when poetry escapes me;
Is the missing puzzle piece, always, that fits when, finally, you've been looking and o, oH, OH, it fits!
Is the greatest common denominator,
the multiple
of lucky numbers and fortunes found
in cookies; fortunes foretold on a palm
not so holy as Buddha’s!
Is you,
Tall and buzzing,
As would delicate, scruffy honeybees
Around the honeyglow olive of my skin,
Of me.
A warm world teaches me all of it
Every morning
In one glow of a sun
Or one glower of a stranger's cat
Or one song sung
Atop my lung's capacity
when only you are listening.
And try this on for size:
I wear the warmth of it all like a shirt,
And it conforms to me, like would a shirt,
It sharpens my frame and makes me say
'hey, I am fancy, look at that!' at my reflection,
like would a shirt,
And like a shirt, it hugs me
like a mother would a child
Like sensitivity to an issue
blankets the cold, lonely places within.
I wear the warmth,
And in it is love,
And you are there.
Oh, warm world,
love of mine,
Can you see?
. . . . .
Erika 2015
