To Pour out the Blood

Do not always do the wisest of things, love is rarely wise,

Rarely makes sense, it is nearly always foolish.

To give all of the thing that is you, to pour out the blood of you,

Holding nothing back that is yourself but to give it all and all.

Love is not wise or sensible, it is not reasonable,

It demands full sacrifice, requires nothing less than everything.

Love, by its nature is a foolish course, defying all logic,

All science, all cold mathematic definition and equation.

There is no chart by which it may be factored, no algorithm to define,

Or explain this connection deeper that the roots of mountains,

This fire that burns at the center of every thought, every dream.

How can I quantify with proofs and theorems this most exotic,

Of feelings as I gaze upon you sleeping so peacefully in the sand?

How can I demonstrate or replicate this sensation of sunshine,

Passing through lightning that overwhelms my eyes,

And makes me weep whenever we two are apart,

Or the way you draw me into your eyes like ocean currents?

How can I speak, with even the softest petals of words,

This longing that urges me throw everything into the fire?

To burn it all for one more moment in your eyes, between your lips,

Beneath what scope may I examine the drive of all my being,

Pressing out through this body of pulsing blood and flesh,

That feels you so keenly across the whole of the distant, lonely earth?

Though I have no thesis or compelling arguments of logic,

I tell you that my spirit knows your spirit, has touched and tasted you,

Has loved you since I was a child, has merged with you,

More literally than any fusion, any welding, any binding of atoms.

I tell you were there myriad galaxies of parallel dimension and universe,

Orbiting star upon star upon star, that my soul would find you,

And love you there also so fiercely that every light diminish in that fire.

I tell you that along the thousand lines and lives we may yet follow,

On into the heaven of heavens or among the dusty bones of the earth,

My heart will go on loving you, finding you, kissing your spirit,

In the dark of night or the ancient dust of stars or the silky depths of air,

That part which loves will remain, awake, with hands held tight upon the tiller,

Navigating what darkness or light or eternal substance endures,

Returning again and again, finding your heart, your hands, your soul.

This is the foolishness of every love and yet the answer to all the dreaming.

Eric M. Petit