While sitting down to work, I see the thin
spine of a paperback called “It’s So Hard
to Love You.” Waiting’s hard, and driving cars
on icy roads is hard, and losing skin.
Or filing taxes. Calmly walking in
a room where men are fighting. Swimming far
through four foot waves. Or dropping what we are
so sure of. Vomiting up shots of gin.
But loving? Loving’s not so hard. It’s what
comes easiest. You’ve seen the way the grass
bends with the breeze? How ferns unfurl? Like love.
It’s all the shoulds we put on love that cut
and burn and roughen us. Ferns never ask
for more. Grass never tells the wind, enough.
asking for more, or wanting less. yupper, we get in our own way.
“Nothing’s wrong as far as I can see/We make it harder than it has to be/…”
A sonneting again, very nice. I do think the sestet is where this one shines, flowing more naturally, expressing that excellent contrast with the octave. In the octave I encounter spots where I feel like the pentameter interferes, like “vomiting UP shots of gin” when the word vomiting says UP (chuck). A sense of randomness in details exists there that is not present in the sestet. Oh, that title, perfect.