“Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.”
— Zelda Fitzgerald
It’s that time of the year – we have hearts instead of eyes, see angels with harps in the shape of clouds and contribute our bit to the commerce of the country and the cyber world by way of cards, flowers and dust-gathering soft toys. No, you won’t hear any complaints about chocolate from me.
Love causes an outpouring of emotion – jealousy and contentment, hope and despair, longing and loneliness.
Even a person who doesn’t like poetry or who may profess to not read it, may use it to express feelings.
And you’re bound to have read some classics. For instance, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How Do I Love Thee? Very few poems match the passion and fervour of the poem. In fact, it reminds me of To My Dear and Loving Husband , by Anne Bradstreet. “If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man/Compare with me, ye women, if you can.”
What about Christina Rossetti’s I loved you first: but afterwards your love? An interesting dialogue on what kind of love is better - The one that lasts long or the one that, “seemed to wax more strong…” The poet ends with the following thought: “Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’/Both have the strength and both the length thereof/Both of us, of the love which makes us one.”
Some of the most frank and erotic poetry comes from classical literature. Poets have continued the tradition today too. In Aubade , Amber Flora Thomas talks of love that cannot wait. “More turning me. Less your arms reaching/ around my back. You ask my ear/ where I have been and my body answers/all over kingdom come.” Aubade is a song set in the morning and is often used to depict lovers going their separate ways at dawn. The poem is set against a rushed breakfast. In A Love Poem , Mehe Jabeen says, “lips publish love poems/with the author’s consent.”
But it’s not always roses and candlelight. There’s a decidedly sad side to love and one can see it in Alice Fulton’s poem, Yours & Mine . There is a distance building and it’s beginning to show up in the couple’s interactions with each other. The poet remarks that her lover loves distance, “how it smooths.” The last lines of the poem are poignant, filled with so much left unsaid and the knowledge that things are different now. “It’s a matter of perspective: yours is to love me/from a block away & mine is to praise the grain-/iness that weaves expressively: your face.”
In Leela Gandhi’s Noun , the poet speaks of love being “a tenancy,” where her “occupancy will be light.” She says, “I’ll pay what rent I owe in kind/behave, keep passion confined/ to small hours, the darkened stair/and what gets damaged, lover, I’ll repair.”
But love isn’t dark and brooding all the time. In Love Explained , Jennifer Michael Hecht weaves fun into the writing. “Guy calls the doctor, says the wife’s/contractions are five minutes apart. Doctor says, Is this her first child? Guy says, No, it’s her husband.” Further into the poem, she says, “It is a pleasure/to meet you. She rolls her/eyes, but he’d once asked her/ Am I your first lover? and she’d/said, Could be. Your face looks/ familiar.” See what I mean?
So, happy valentine’s day to those who believe and to those who want to. May we recognise the love we have in our lives, each day, every day.
Srividya is a poet. Read her work at >www.rumwrapt.blogspot.in
