Sunshine and Sunglasses

Where there is love, there is sunshine. The whole world shimmers and creatures seem brighter, warmer and iridescent. Living things grow in sunshine and love is no exception. Read Nikki Giovanni's poem (below) from her book of poems "Bicycles".

"In Migrations, one of her strongest poems, she explores those forces that drive wild creatures from one seasonal home to another."

The sun returns

To the arctic circle
From its winter rest

The grasses sprout
Seducing the winged
And the hoofed

Polar bears and their cubs
Must flee
Before the ice
Breaks up...

... unflinchingly face:

Hunger
Thirst
Predators
Winds
Rains
Uncertainties

As would I
For you

   Now that the season of sunshine is beginning, let us take out our sunglasses and open our hearts to love. You can read Nikki Giovanni's advice on how to write a love poem here.

Blackbird Song

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

    by Wallace Stevens (excerpt)

Section VII

"O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?"

  The things in life that give us the greatest pleasure are often right in front of us.  If we recognize that fact, and respond to local beauty, there is no need to "imagine golden birds" or other mythology. Watch, Look and Listen for Love. 
Love feeds us both physically and spiritually. 
   Listen to the song of the blackbird above. When I hear it, I am no longer a thin man of Haddam. I feel like I have heard a beautiful song. Perhaps it is also serenading the women around us. At that moment, the man, the woman and the blackbird are one.

"Three Men Walking" - Alberto Giacometti 

                                     
                                        

Seeing Love

Whenever you see love, you can somersault over the hurtful obstacles of life. That  love can be for beauty, nature, a person, or a song. Love is a force or energy more powerful than anything that opposes love.
   In Milton's  Sonnet, O Nightingale, the nightingale's warble symbolizes love as a "fresh hope" for Lovers.

 

O Nightingale

John Milton
O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray
Warbl’st at eeve, when all the Woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May,
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow Cuccoo’s bill
Portend success in love; O if Jove’s will
Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate
Foretell my hopeles doom in som Grove ny:
As thou from yeer to yeer hast sung too late
For my relief; yet hadst no reason why,
Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

Instead of the nightingale, we have the pretty "liquid notes" of Steve Wariner to serenade us, in this most propitious month of May.

Breath

  

 

"To take someone's breath 

away" is an English idiom that means  "to overwhelm someone with beauty or grandeur; to surprise or astound someone."  Examples are "The magnificent painting took my breath away."  or  "My darling looked so beautiful that she took my breath away."   
     

Breathing is not easier when you are in love.  You can count your  breaths till you see each other again. You can get become breathless with anticipation. Still a life with love is the best way to breathe. Open the windows to love.