A carved block of granite

Sometimes, if you put the grays of granite

under a magnifying lens, you find also

pink crystals of feldspar arranged

like thoughts of your beloved. This is

probably why we put granite, over

their graves. You asked me once, what

does love feel like; how does one know

they are even in love? I told you, love

is not a feeling- it is an action verb.

Transitive and intransitive. It is the act

of giving and allowing, all the nuances

of colors in the world. What color is your

bedroom at night when you lie down,

and rub your hands like a baker over the

thoughts of your most beloved, imagining

the curve of her back as if she were or

maybe were not, lying next to you? When

your need to describe that color is greater

than your fear of doing so, that is love.

What color is your sense of despair, when

you jolt awake at 3 am, panicking over

some small task you forgot yesterday?

If you allow your beloved to place a

real or imaginary hand over your heart

while you exorcise the color of the dragons

that haunt your dreams, that too, is love.

If you see the colors of each gentle renewed

morning, and they can promise you of

all the things you could do with each

improbable gift of another day searching

this world for the impossible and the

free- and you desire to share that freedom

with someone present or absent. That is

love. Love is the color of the insolence

of grass as it rebels against your control

and it is the color of lost opportunities to

tell her she is important to you. It is the

color of what we say without words and

the antique cream of the faded letter

you could never throw away. It is the color

of the benefit of a doubt and of second

chances when she has upset you. It is

the flower you give yourself when the

mistake was yours. It is the fact that even

blind men can learn to recognize the color

red, and the possibility that blue does not

actually exist at al but is only reflected. It

is knowing the power of the artist- that

black and white are absence and presence

of all colors; that grays are complementary.

God is neither a pure tyrant or pure

benevolent force, and neither is the

devil. You are part both, and so is your

beloved. You only know love and its minions

when you let the color invade each minute

and hand her the paintbrush sometimes.

If you cannot do that yet, start by

appreciating a block of carved granite.

You’ll get there, eventually.

Author's Note

Meditation on the theme "achromatopsia," the complete inability to see colors. People with the disorder see only tonalities of black, white, and gray. Topic assigned as homework in our Casa los Altos poetry group. This is the final version of my poem, translated from the original I had written in Spanish for our activity. The repetition of the words "color" and "love" is intentional.

Reviews

[Corset]

Love is usually the most strongest and evident when you lose someone, whether to death or to life I fear, and by then it is usually too late, and how cruel is that fate, to realize and to despair. I just received your book and I am eager to read it, I admire your work so much and this poem brings tears as it should in a fine work of art as this is. excellent work!

[charlie]

A fantastic, solid poetic study on what is love.
I do feel like I had to read the word "color" one too many times, (love being and action verb, and all) though, to be fair, it was in keeping with the theme.

For such a chunk of writing on a heavy subject (a paradox, almost) your poem, Marie, hits bullseye with the precision of a snipers dart, the weight of a meteor, and the aura of a lily.
Great work!

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

So much emotional and intellectual depth to this poem it is a well that goes all way to the earth's core. I can find many wonderful lessons in here, the most important one is we need to appreciate loved ones while they are here.