poem: This Love, by Katie Raver

my dear friend katie wrote this. i can feel the influence of the weekend spent at buescher state park in celebration of my birthday, and the influence of rumi, whom she read to us that weekend, and yet katie makes it completely her own, an original poem.


This love has made me crazy.
I keep forgetting to rise up, to worry,
and I’m dancing around in meadows,
silly and stupid with your ecstasy.

Where were all these meadows before?

Next to you in the car,
the discord of lights and smog
becomes Spring itself.
All of humanity is on the same path, at the same time,
red lights guiding the way.

I only bother to sleep to hold
your hand in those unconscious moments.
Butterflies and moths fly out of my eyes.
Two trees use me as their telephone line.
I try to tell the man watering red hibiscus plants.
He gives me a round stone.

How can I explain this insanity?
I just follow the owl flying overhead,
downtown, at midday. Your eyes glisten,
you hold me close. I’m late again
for another meeting.