Recovering Romantic-seasons of love

Recovering romantic from an ill fated love affair. When I first saw her on her motorcycle, with long black hair flying, I was smitten. I lost myself in that image of wild beauty. I wrote this poem, later played piano and sang it.

Her eyes told me that there was a world beyond mortal sight
Then I saw the shimmering moonlight that was her hair, all a tumble
with waterfalls and birdsong
that I could hear across the rift of our universes.
Her gossamer blue wings irridesced in and out of my vision
and there was a hint of lilac
and something else
the scent of wonder.

She revved her Harley, just feet away from my open window
at the stop light.
She looked into my mind and smiled a smile that
sucked me right out of my head and smacked me against the wall that
separated our worlds.
She laughed.
The very air became her joyful laughter,, blessed
as in kissed
made love to
She let me in and I soared
United
For that sparking instant
in a joining I had always known was possible.
and it might be enough,
but it was not enough, just to know.

The light changed
She fled away
weaving through traffic
I couoldn't catch her
The last I saw was the red taillight dropping
on the other side of the overpass a quarter mile ahead
I was bereft
I am still trying to catchy my breath
after seeing an angel on US 19
I wonder if I was dreaming
I want to go to heaven if that is where she is
Or get a fast Harley and catch her.
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Soon after, I met her, for real, and we talked. I was in love. Euphorically, floatingly in love with this beautiful being. She was Italian, mysterious, alive, hot, reaching. I fell on my head.

Without going through details, months passed of reaching and withdrawing, and now it is over, and I am still connected for I have tasted her universe. That is what communication does, reaches and enters other universes and draws them near, and if you are brave, you enter and can lose yourself in the labryinth of baffling mazes. Love is the melding of universes in a sweeping joinder. I wanted this joinder completely, but she held back, and the more I reached, the further she retreated. Only when I withdrew did she reach, but tentatively and without commitment. The game became pain, then loss and blame. It is over and the scent of wonder still remains, with angst, in my bones.

I was reading a poem this morning, which jumpstarted this little piece, from my wonderful friend, Shirley Windward, who at 90 is still writing, still loving and being. I so wish to deserve the love that she reflects giving someone in this somewhat erotic piece:

Maelstrom Encounter
"---you leap into the navel of his belly
whee the hair grows perfect, evenly arranged like an oriental fan
and trace that fan along the rib of sliding sweet skin, moist with itself
and with your own sleek lips
touch that generous nipple with your
tongue, pressong to ecstacy
in the throat hollow, and up the ridge
of his chin, and then plunge, the arrival,
the attck on his round, red,
barely waiting, ah----beloved lips."

Thank God I have known such touching by a loving woman, but have never been able to deserve keeping her. I learned why, just yesterday, because I was never true. I had never committed myself totally to a women out of fear of losing myself from betrayal or just not being honest, having a back door, keeping that door open for the perfect one that may come along or as an escape route. I opened myself once and stayed married almost twenty years but lost her because I was selfish and lack of my integrity--I didn't screw around, I was just not thinking as I am now and wish I had then the wisdom I now have learned through painful necessity.

When I realized what a worm I have been all my years, I knew I had to change for my viewpoint has proven to be the roadmap to the perfect storm of misery which I have known so much during my life. One knows so little about love; there is no roadmap to the perfect relationship. Relying on emotion as the main criterion is the road to hell. I know.

One is either cause or effect, or somewhere between, and when it comes to love, sex, one wants to be effect and simply opens the door to all that comes through that door to smack him right where he lives. I feel wounded and wonder if I will heal right now because I relied on emotion, but it was a welcomed euphoria I haven't had in a long time, and a feeling of connection I don't remember having this lifetime. I wonder if I can stop loving her. It is an aesthetic undefinable tie that has a beauty that I wish I could control, but it has a tentative hold on me with no future. I still don't understand it but I do know that again I did not take responsibility for myself, and for her, and managed to wreck it again. There will be a next time, and this time I will dedicate myself so fully, regardless of the consequences. I think integrity is the ability to commit oneself fully to another, a job, an effort, without reservation, with the willingness to have whatever comes from the result, hell or high water, and then can look back and say "I did my best." I screwed this one up and though it had problems of age difference, cultural and language differences, if I had this integrity, I could have made it go right. I will never go at anything that I undertake half assed again. I did it with my law practice, always wanting out from the beginning, but in spite of that I was successful for forty three years as an asskicking courtroom lawyer. Maybe that is where I got that attitude. Regardless of its source, I am the one responsible.. It is time that I grow up and become responsible. I devoutly will keep this promise to myself. I will be true to myself and to my mate, my work and life from this point forward. I will be awake every moment from here on to choose the route that serves the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and elements in the world, and not just for my selfish self. I want balance,and I will have it. Nothing else will serve. I promise you, my friends, and myself. This is a defining moment.

Then there is my poet friend, Dean Blehert, whose words "We have drawn apart to play catch," once blew me in the weeds with that concept. He has millions of poems. I think he must write dozens every day about everything. He is funny as hell, making points without being serious. His recent publication, Deanotations, Volume I, are poems written beginning in August 1984. Such as

Fame has not changed me
though I daily bask in the applause
of future readers.

The suicidal cavalry officer fed his horse
beans, then locked himself in the stable
with the horse running.

No wind
A tree talks very slow.

The clouds have vanished
and the sunlight is getting
all over everything.

Snap goes the shoelace. The short part
hangs from my hand, lookikng apologetic.

He compared her to a flute:
"I fingered all her stops."
My first date was like that:
Whenever I touched an opening,
she said "stop."

There comes a time in a man's life
when he has to choose. I can't decide
if this is that time or not.

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Ignore the craziness of the day just for a while. Sit quietly for three minutes and look at the quietness that surrounds you, reach into their simplicities and be that, find a momentary peace for the noise is only in you. Love yourself, for you are your best friend.

I love you
Can you love yourself as much as I love you?