Beauty (so beautiful) in little letters....

Love Like Salt
by Lisel Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

I am here

Once upon a time, my Creative Writing class was assigned to write a sestina. And it was hard. I didn't get past the first stanza, and that stanza wasn't even completely finished, either. Far from it.

So why I can finish one off two years later is a complete mystery, but in one mad fit of words, I did. And, seeing as it's about love, I figured it might live well enough here among the YTS.

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Hope hovers in the sky today,
Spring measured in teaspoons
like the love I so delicately hold in cupped hands.
Kept close, it hums its own song
of prayer and promise in new light---
but I cannot match it to words.

Trembling now, it could break with words.
This dawn is yet too fragile today,
and almost too bright the light
might shatter this heart that beats in the spoon
of my palms, its rhythm-song
directed by your hands.

A whole world---what a handful!
We exchange ourselves in chance words,
a close chorus that sings
tomorrow is today.
Together they fit like stacked spoons,
collection of our combined light.

Perhaps too much, this light?
A flame too readily lit by my hands?
And yet we've tested this slowly by the spoonful:
a word, a laugh, another word . . .
No, I do not think today
is too much to ask of your singing.

For I am confident in my song---
it is the only one big enough to fill love's light.
Walking surely today,
a torch in one steady hand,
I balance (in the other) your words
as an egg on a spoon.

With every step I take, spooning
new notes from internal song,
I give you my word:
Love held transparent to the light.
Tomorrow is at hand;
you hold it in your today.

My heart, spooned from me with every word,
sings testament to your light
and hammers against my hand: we are today!

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A word from M now, yes? I miss you.

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Annie's last line has me thinking Whitman---goodly, glorious Whitman. So often his words echo my thoughts, and (through the silly-sad realization that I've never actually had an original idea) I revel in them. I celebrate myself, and sing myself. Early morning hours awake and alive have no comparison. I am satisfied---I see, dance, laugh, sing. The air bites but the sun shines; the world is open and humming. I believe in you my soul. I can handle it.

Today hasn't been much of an adventure as far as happenings go, but I feel excited about very nearly everything. The way my hair swept up into an easy French twist. How my heels click on the frozen concrete. When Professor Matthews shouted "yes!" at my comment this morning. Sincerity from one of my students, thanking me for showing him the light in Heart of Darkness. Chatting with coworkers, eyes alight in the fire of conversation. Coming to a conclusion without really thinking anything through: Waiting be damned. I am going to live. He'll catch up. Because I am amazing and lovely and every sort of color and I am brilliant and confident and I am true.

Yes, today I sing a Song of Myself, but to sing such is really praises for the masses. Because Leaves of Grass is just another way to shout Humanity! Because just as individual spears of grass make the green hill, so are we interconnected. Our differences point to our commonality. I am not alone. I am not the only one to ever have felt this way. I celebrate the part because I am part of something greater, something eternal.The epic is all I, I, I---but I think there's something to be said that it ends in you.

{Listening to the YTS Love Mix. Wondering how we got it so good.
Hoping everyone holds a piece of this happiness in their hearts.}