I absolutely LOVE this poem

It's by a local poet, too--and a professor at my college. I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to meet and maybe even be taught by this man.

Want - James Harms, from Freeways and Aqueducts

I want nothing more than this:

to hear the blood in your hands when they touch my face;
to listen at the edge of sleep to your breath grown steady;
to fix the torn hem in your favorite dress before you return
from a day of errands;
to never seek your notice of the small ways, the slight repairs
of love;
to sear red peppers on a grill, the strips of steak, to pour the drinks
and hear through the kitchen window the phone ring,
your laughter;
to love from a distance as you laugh;
to fear truthfully, like a sparrow in the dark weeds, instead
of hopelessly as I do when your image, for whole seconds,
flickers loosely and vanishes, my mind a lit theater,
the film on fire.
to smile quietly when your back is turned, because it isn't time yet
to say it again;
to ache a little less in your absence;
to feel the hush that follows rain as silence and not a figure for loss;
to find your fingerprints in the soil of a house plant, to fill them
with water;
to want for all things but not for you;
to know my wanting is a way of holding;
to hold without hurting;
to leave the windows open, to find a room filled with pear
blossoms, to leave them there for days, to find them
in your hair.

to smile quietly when your back is turned, because it isn't time yet
to say it again;
to ache a little less in your absence;


:hi:

RL

This part really struck me:

to feel the hush that follows rain as silence and not a figure for loss;
to find your fingerprints in the soil of a house plant, to fill them
with water;

The imagery there is just hauntingly beautiful to me.

I know this one, very well.

I didn't see this one when you originally posted it...

But how glad I am to have seen it now...

Absolutely beautiful!

Oh, how it speaks to me...

This line especially:

to ache a little less in your absence...


I hope you can take a class from him! To be in touch with such a brilliant mind is a gift!

Thank you...

:hug:

really nice use of language - very vivid!