All I want is a room

A meditation on a line
from a poem by Frank O’Hara*

In the innocence of my childhood
             there were coal fires
and a long sloping garden
             with tall silver birches to climb
and during the winter months
             I scored countless goals
and suffered chilblains
             on my feet :
and in the summers
             I ran through the woods
collecting sweet chestnuts
             and used a bicycle to hide
within the endless
             duskless days

Education taught me
             little more than how little I knew
and love has since taught me
             how hard it is to find love
With age comes the wisdom
             to want next to nothing
but a room with you in it
             to need next to nothing tangible
because love truly is
             the only abstraction
worth grasping

There are rich almond
             and strawberry pleasures
sure enough but these
             all too soon will turn
to butterfly dust
             Age has taught me
the unparalleled urgency
             of the word now
and how living
             within the moment
of my feelings
             is the only way to survive
to go out each day
             into the world and gather
blooms from the thorny rose
             wherever I may find them

Time is a killer
             but you and I together
can outsmart it
             through the multiplication
of our kisses and caresses
             through the intensity
with which we merge our skins
              dipping constantly
into the soft succulent portals
             of eternity

In love without doubt
             we are all winners
after all we’re alive :
             what else matters ?
All I want is a room
             and for you to be in it

John Lyons

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* Taken from the poem “Steps,” by Frank O’Hara, which can be accessed by following this link https://people.creighton.edu/~mlm22940/writings/ohara/steps.html.

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