THE WILL TO LOVE

The smell of oil paint
floating through old studios
while my mother posed beneath warm lamps

Turpentine and color
Canvas breathing quietly
Artists speaking in half-whispers
like priests of some forgotten tenderness

Love was there…
Love was there…

Toys flying from Greenwich Village windows
into alleyways below

Not because I hated them—
No—

Because childhood overflows sometimes
and must scatter itself
into the world

My dear Aunt Lily…
soft hands and old stories

My little red wheelbarrow
waiting beside wet grass

The clearing in the Berkshires
where silence became visible

Michigan mushroom hunts
through damp forests breathing earth

Bows and arrows…
small warrior dreams

Lionel train sets humming
through winter evenings

My little teddy bear
holding guard beside sleep

Bicycles flying toward freedom

Apple trees twisting toward sky

Lilac bushes perfuming spring air
like memory itself

My brothers…
My sisters…
all our wildness together

Love was there…
Love was there…

Nature raised me too

Streams and stones
birds and leaves
mud on the knees
sunlight through branches

The long apprenticeship
to wonder

Midwives…
Weavers…
keepers of ancient continuities

My grandmother’s perfume
lingering after embraces
like invisible flowers

Twice—
death opened its mouth

Twice—
I was carried back

Saved inside wreckage
for reasons still unfolding

Love kept me…
Love kept me…

Folk music drifting
through Detroit radio nights

Joan Baez
Buffy Sainte-Marie
Bob Dylan
Pete Seeger
Johnny Cash

Voices carrying conscience
through static and distance

Songs teaching the heart
that justice and tenderness
belong together

Clarinets…
Recorders…
wood and breath becoming spirit

Possums wandering moonlit edges
The little one transformed me

Cats curling beside sorrow

Dogs teaching loyalty without philosophy

Hamsters and guinea pigs
small fragile lives
trusted briefly into my hands

Hibiscus flowers
lemongrass…
lemon balm…
lemon verbena…

The perfumes of healing

Tea steaming quietly
through countless mornings

Books opening hidden doors

Gardens everywhere…

Compost turning death
into nourishment

Wild mounds of herbs
speaking the old green language

Hummingbirds hovering
like impossible jewels

Art studios cluttered with becoming

Bathtubs…
Garden sheds…
Garages…
temporary sanctuaries of creation

I have seen strange lights
cross impossible skies

Flaming fire above darkness

Mysteries moving silently
through the great unknown

And still—

Love remained the deeper mystery

The women I have loved…
the women who loved me…

All the tenderness
All the ache
All the unfinished songs

Cooking beautiful meals
for hungry people

Becoming an artist…
Becoming a scientist…
discovering they were never separate

Becoming a songwriter
because some feelings
needed rhythm to survive

My teapot graveyard…
silent ceramic witnesses
to thousands of conversations
with existence itself

Love was there…
Love was there…

My social change work
My longing for justice
My refusal to abandon humanity

Love was there too

Not sentimental—
No—

A fierce love
A wounded love
A stubborn love
that keeps planting seeds
inside damaged civilizations

These are my memories of love

What I have loved

What has loved me

The endless exchange

The breathing reciprocity
between self and world

The will to love…
The love to be…
The love to will…

It’s all love you see…

All relation
All becoming
All luminous participation
inside the great unfinished heart
of the universe

Radiate perpetual love…
Radiate perpetual love…
Radiate perpetual love…
Radiate perpetual love…
Radiate perpetual love…
Radiate perpetual love…