Lessons of Love
When you are in love
stars can fall at your bidding
the moon can swallow the sun
and love` s moment itself
is a perpetual miracle
a trip to outer space.
Those unable to find another love
agree that loneliness
is the perpetual fire
after the first love,
there is no other.
I have fallen in love
ten times out of ten
with light, dark, tall and short
girls, all claimed they loved me
but who has nurtured the undying love?
They passed through my heart
like comets which faded across the sky.
What is the meaning of love?
I remember names--only names
as they erode into my nostalgic past.
I remember the trysting tree
how I waited in the dark like a hunter
night` s next of kin lying in wait
an angel emerged from the dark.
I remember nights I ran back home
feeling like a king, a conqueror
after some triumph over sweet romance
a lover` s hope, wish and bliss
are nothing but wandering wings.
Eight years after exchanging
love for love like clothes
I got married to the one girl on hand
happy but gripped by the fever
of wedlock -- and was I fortunate?
Marriage is more than a lotus meal
dreams fully wake, no longer a joke
from doing the dishes to settling the bills
from throwing tantrums to hugging and kissing
it` s hard to abscond from the vow.
True love cannot be borrowed or sold.
Now I know what others have known for ages
that we can learn to look on love
as a gift taken from nature` s palm
but teenage love is timorous
and the thoughtless youth
is in the hour of ignorance
severed from lessons of endurance.
Is love a game of chess?
Sometimes I wondered what`s next
we have been to the top, bottom and between
at other times we marvelled
for seeing the airbus land
where we took off --it s always been the same
the same face and the same laugh
I have always known and courted
for years without wavering or faltering.
How else can love be explored?
I have never come closer to the riddle
than when I lie in the sun
counting my blessings like beads,
or when I stare in her eyes
to find that the sweetness I have known
in her is not overshadowed
by fear, solitude, pain or grief.
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