Love is When

With acknowledgements to Craig Raine's poem entitled A Martian Sends a Postcard Home


  Love is When
 
Blackout Poetry Tent-- Creativity Project Art in the Open 2014 
Photo by Alana Sprague
Salt is the old memory of licking your friend's arm after ocean swimming.

Tears are when sadness comes to roost upon the rafters of your heart.

Wind is the sweet thinness that breathes us and whistles through small openings.

Sand castles are the worlds you construct without a permit.

Hungry is when the cupboard's bare, the earth is parched and forks and plates are meaningless.

Twilight is the soft look your eyes give off at the end of day when the silence is okay.

Fiddleheads are when the earth unfurls in tender green spirals and you want to make pie of it.

Insomnia is when the world's shout is too near and you plug  your ears but the sounds won't stop.

Rivers are when the land has veins that carry our shared histories and hold our futures in their palms.

Fear is when the poison spider's bit your soul and you are paralyzed but still alive.

Joy is a cloudless sky looking down upon a frozen pond and you are there tying skates with cold fingers.

Love is when the whole world freezes crystalline as salt then melts your heart into a rainbow, one sweet dripping breath at a time.
Jill MacCormack

 Creativity Project 2014 Rainbow and Pennants Photo by Janice McGuigan