poem: I Carry You

imagining a great and terrible and beautiful unrequited love

I carry you with me where I go

you hold the lantern of my nights

your voice leads me to seek new days

I leave behind trails of dust

to find the winding way back home

but the footsteps I follow are your own

for I carry you with me where I go.

I wander with receptive eyes

but through yours, does the world renew

I pluck spotted feathers from forest trails

in order to describe, for you, the thrush

silhoutted shapes and brushstrokes of life

I would paint its song on canvas walls

to immortalize the memory for you

but you already know all these things,

for I carry you with me where I go.

as I wander, I find in fascination that I seek

outside, that which I already hold inside

I have already brought you this far

with me. When I fight, your whispered words

advise my hand and heart

and when I love, your fingers entwined

in my hair pull me closer, each breath

is an exhalation of thankfulness, for you.

I carry you with me where I go.

You are always with me, yet I search-

and every face becomes a two dimensioned

mirror of the four dimensions of you.

I walk forwards and backwards in time.

I take the Southern Cross as diamonds

to wear in my hair for you, my breasts

leak tears instead of milk, and my footsteps

echo quietly in carved stone hallways,

places where classic love is exalted on high.

judgment dogs my every labored step;

and I carry you with me where I go.

Author's Note

maybe real, maybe not. maybe if I master the unrequited, I will be permitted a chance at more?

translated into Spanish here:
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/zorra_encantada/1373593/

Reviews

[VennelaMargame]

I can picture you picking up those flowers along the trail. "Southern Cross as diamonds" reminds me of when Stevens referred to the moon as the "bijou of Atlas" and I've always liked that turn of phrase.

I know you well enough to know that if this is true, it comes from a very personal place, so I will give you my best wishes in any case, true or not.

The vaguely blank verse rhythms work nice here, and there is a vague sibilant consonance throughout it, not sure it if has a significance. It also helps that I was hearing a melancholy song when I read this.

Best wishes.

[Marie Anzalone]

Flowers, leaves, feathers, bones, owl pellets. I am the only woman I know (besides maybe Heather) to have ever been courted by men who come bearing roadkill as gifts. And yes, of course it is real... it is as real as the blood in my veins. I feel like I am doing a lot of jettison of cargo recently; lighter somehow. Preparing for either a new life or my own death. Maybe both at once?

[VennelaMargame]

But I would miss you horribly.

[Marie Anzalone]

come visit. I promise cookies

[Corset]

If unrequited love would speak these are the words it would say, hands down this is a masterpiece.

[Marie Anzalone]

thnak you, my friend :-)

[lee von cleef]

soul, real companion light, music guide, down around out ,in up, set down by the river, Oh now you have stride, substance, yet your heart is so light. Stand tall naked with gods warmth makes you glow .

[Marie Anzalone]

yes.. we stride, we glow, we strive, we play the fool and we grow. at the end fo things, we convert back to light anyway, don;t we?

[lee von cleef]

I suppose so,if we grow into a sage or a oak to burn by man ,lightning or God.

[h d e rushin]

"Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe The Weary Eyes" Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote in 1896. And with
that similar repeated ending lament. Of course you carry on, but let the world dream otherwise.
I have deuteranopia, the blindness to green. But all the other colors you paint, those shaded in
gold with silver braided love, I do see clearly...

nicely written.
love forever,

dana

[Marie Anzalone]

isn't it amazing how chameleon-like is the color of love? Gibran said it so well when he described beauty as rest fr the weary, excitement for the bored, solace for the hunted, etc. Our own unmet needs, reflected back to us. Maybe the source of envy and desire, too.

My friend, I am glad to be here, writing this to you. I lamost was not, this past week. I hope that is passed, but we each sometimes take one day, hour, minute at a time. As you know. Right now, I focus on wiritng this response to your review. Maybe in another minute, other responses.

love, me.

[Emily B]

oh, oh, Rachel . . . i read the words breathless, you always say the things i can't so much better than i never could . . . i have cold chills and goose bumps and

somehow, my computer brought back the review i thought i lost days ago

[Marie Anzalone]

I knew that you, perhaps above almost all others, would truly "get" this piece. and no wonder, for our journeys overlap in lockstep so frequently. it would not surpirse me at all to learn that yu are finding old situations requiring settling right now, in transition to yet something else. I think we are cursed to never sit still and know solace and contentment for longer than a span of say, oh a sngle blessed week.

[writing mojo]

you captured your intend in the trinity of your love insight...excellent piece

[Marie Anzalone]

thnak you, mojo, for your kind words and comments

[Tree]

A tender journey deep, into your heart. That's what this felt like. The tone, the imagery. The author might be carrying the weight of unrequited love, but you are not alone, for any reader of this poem journeys with you, too, following that speck of light, moving along the trail.
When I think of what sparks the imagination and creativity, the fires of unrequited love must be one of the most powerful. It contains within it the whole spectrum of emotions, but unlike requited love these powerful forces remain concentrated inside of you for long periods of time, billowing, and stoking all kinds of solitary fires.
Oh, there are a myriad of films or art that I can lay out as examples for what can be created under the duress of unrequited love, but these three literary works stand out for me.

The original Shakespeare's, Romeo And Juliet
Vladimir Nabokov's controversial yet –––– exquisitely written, Lolita.
And Marquez's, Love in the Time of Cholera

This was an important poem, Marie.
One to be revisited, no doubt.

[Marie Anzalone]

my dear Diego, I have read and loved all three works. Especially the last. I like to think I have the patience of a Florentino Arriza, but alas, I am far more hot-blooded than that. Then again, he had 662 lovers over the years. A goal to achieve? maybe less unrequited love than the lengths we go to in order to fill a space left by an unattainable love? for I see a huge difference. unrequited loves eventually go away to die quite deaths and live on only in canlde flames. Unattainable requited love... has the Devil himself ever created a finer torture for the world?

[Marie Anzalone]

and then there are those who I would say, "if only you could be one of the 662," but I realize on some deep level really would only turn into more of the same unfulfilled passion... a limbo in-between nameable and unnameable things. But of course you would have absoultely no idea of what I speak...

[Tree]

Edited version; too many misspelled words :)

No, poetess. The devil has not. The unattainable is the unnameable. Even if we were to break through physically, it might still, never be ours. Better to go warm myself by the small flames of Florentino's 662 lovers, than to try and nab that fire in the sky; a blue comet. Once, every 19 years.

I Carry You, was a fine poem, poetess.
Felt it.

[Marie Anzalone]

I sometimes feel compelled to do those coreections, too, my friend... I understand

[Tree]

Out of order here, sorry about that. Seems, I'm always in editing mode these days, trying, to fix things. Make things, right... In response to our boy's 662 lovers, even Florentino was underwhelmed. He was like a ghost, moving, right through them. I'm not sure how or why Marquez wrote that in like that, it was more fantastical than even I could ever imagine. If he truly loved that woman. He might of never made it past nine or ten, before realizing: it's better to jerk *** , orwork out a lot, or get a second or third job... Then again, leave it to me to find a way to try and out romanticize Gabriel García Marquez, right? ;)

[Marie Anzalone]

I do not know what tto tell you, but I am laughing so hard I am crying. Last year, a 68 year-old mentor of mine propsed to me during a business meeting... he bent down to tie his shoe, and kissed my foot. We were discussing small scale dairy and sheep marketing at the time- totally random. Someone else told me of the old regional office of the Ministry of Agriculture... you had to enter a bar and walk through a brothel to get to the stairs to the second floor that led to the office. I have a hotel owner keeping me at arm's length emotionally, and at his side [sometimes] physically. The love of my life admits who he is, but also regrets that he can never have a life with me... but he would consider fathering a child. A comment to an ex about his new love sparked a full-scale 3 sided war. Etc.

Lord, could I ever have been anything but a writer? I am laughing because I "get" Marquez... I am living the life of one of his bewildered characters. You see, he was like Lovecraft's artist... drawing his material form real life, and losing sanity in the process. Did he exaggerate? Hell, yes. My 68 year-old would-be suitor admits to "only" having 100 lovers in his life. Did he have to bend the truth very far? Hell, no...

[Tree]

I don't know what to say, except, I'm kind of laughing, too. He kissed your foot? Did he tie his shoe first? I think if he did, you should consider the manner in which Don Pépe, prioritizes? Just, saying. Anyway, it seems to me you just outlined the basic structure of your future love novel: Love In The Time Of Tetanus/ Diphtheria, or something like that. Set in the cascading mountain side, of a towering dream, in small /latin American/ country... Now, Get Started.

[Marie Anzalone]

Already started... it is actually here on WC :-) The problem is, I add a new chapter every other week or so. And who wants to read a trilogy on love in the time of utter madness?

And, he tied his shoe first... to put me off guard, I am sure. :-/

You really cannot make this stuff up sometimes...

[Ken Simm.]

I simply don't think I can put what I think of this into words that will be sufficient. You must know how fully crafted and jewel like this is. One of your best that is then to say; one of the best.

[Marie Anzalone]

thnak you, Ken, for the beautiful compliments on this piece. I suspect you relate to the content in more than passing resemblance...

[jacob erin-cilberto]

wow, this is an intense love poem....being so close that we see, hear, taste, touch and smell through another...as if we are that person, and that person is us.

nicely done.

[Marie Anzalone]

thank you, jacob, I am, of course, describing a true soul connection. soe other day I will tell you if I believe in them or not :-)

[W.k.kortas]

It strikes me as almost a backward invocation to the muse, an offering of inspiration as much or so than the receiving of same. The use of repetition is just so, not at all overdone, and the piece (especially the final stanza) is a wonderful interweaving of the plaintive and the hopeful. It's a spot-on blend of emotion and craftmanship, with neither underdone or overstated. First-class writing.

[Marie Anzalone]

thnaks, kortas... I view my wiritng as painting, my words as brushstrokes on a canvas, for I am an artsit first, writer and poet, second. Any good painter has to know balance, and tries not to overdo the effect. Give the idea, let the mind fill in the rest. It is very good to know that I am starting to succeed in this artform, according to your kind words. thank you very much.