The Power of Love

Caught up with Bill Moyers last night and caught this segment with Philip Appleman.

All through the reading of this poem, I found myself thinking, yes! Yes! And I wondered about that, because I don't have someone to love and, listening to the poem, I realized I didn't even have an image of someone to find, to hold in my arms, to be there for. So I wondered, who or what was I thinking of rushing to be with through all the ugliness with which the world presents us? And I don't know. But it would be something, or someone, a book, an idea, a friend. A stranger, perhaps. I would hope that something would impel me into the rubble, looking for a hand to hold.

This Year's Valentine

They could
pump frenzy into air ducts
and rage into reservoirs,
dynamite dams
and drown the cities,
cry fire in theaters
as the victims are burning,
but
I will find my way through blackened streets
and kneel down at your side.

They could
jump the median, head-on,
and obliterate the future,
fit .45's to the hands of kids
and skate them off to school,
flip live butts into tinderbox forests
and hellfire half the heavens,
but
in the rubble of smoking cottages
I will hold you in my arms.

They could
send kidnappers to kindergartens
and pedophiles to playgrounds,
wrap themselves in Old Glory
and gut the Bill of Rights,
pound at the door with holy screed
and put an end to reason,
but
I will cut through their curtains of cunning
and find you somewhere in moonlight

Whatever they do with their anthrax or chainsaws,
however they strip-search or brainwash or blackmail,
they cannot prevent me from sending you robins,
all of them singing: I'll be there.