Scorn
How could I love one—
That fails to grow sickly in love with the word?
That thinks them dull to hold,
And yet—with great interest,
Caresses the hand that writes it?
How could I love one—
One who is deaf to the music of poetry?
Who clutches at me heartily,
But believes a phrase…
To be but only a phrase?
And not a life?
Do I live then—
Only with my mind?
And to scorn that phrase!
Not that I have not scorned something in ignorance—
Not that I have not disrupted beauty before—
But to scorn what I deem the best that I am—
How could I love such a one?
How could I live to love at all?
And yet do I live to love—
Even those that detest such words—
That have not a pleasant thing to say,
Nor an opinion to utter,
Nor a care to conceive—
And yet I do love
Those that will not understand
Just as I love without understanding
How can I ever find what it is that harms me so—
That I may grab it—
And effortlessly forgive it!
How could I say to you, or he, or she?
That you must love something
With immaterial means to love?
I am harmed foolishly it seems then—
Because I am in love with my own dreams
My own poetry—
And not enough in love with reality
While in turn,
I scorn
As any human would,
Just enough to love—
But one
|