We learn to love by being loved.
—Rafael J. Gonzalez, personal correspondence
There are days now when I feel so embraced by life
it’s as if life itself is pulling me into its great, strong arms,
surrounding me with warmth, tenderness, radiance,
as if life is whispering into my ear, loving and low,
I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you.
Not that I’ve forgotten how fear enters in
with its wide-eyed hunger, how grief gnaws at raw flesh,
how the heart’s walls fall down in cacophonous descent,
but there are, I must tell you, golden hours sparked with joy,
love-dappled days steeped in flowers and song
and I can’t pretend it’s not beautiful,
can’t not share how the same life that ravages us
also gathers us in so gently, so surely
that we, too, become golden, become sun and moon,
become rapturous bloom, become kiss.
inspired by The Beethoven Frieze (1901), Gustav Klimt