Meditation in times of love

Life can sometimes seem so serious
           that it is difficult to distinguish
between one emergency or another
           and there are no guides
you simply have to live your way
           through it every man woman and child
and the suspense can be killing or not
           depending on the emotional weather

We live constantly on the edge
           expecting approbation and beauty
and a life all rolled into one
           every dream ever wished upon a star

So she walks into my life
           a glamorous insurgence
and all at once I am at war with myself
           she is pale and the wind shapes her hair
so that it billows in the way Botticelli chose for Venus
           and we wander through the gallery
chasing images to take home and outside
           the streets somehow have emptied
and we have the city to ourselves
           which is how love feels
a delicious emergency of the heart
           and there is no darkness
and there are no secrets
           and no pain intrudes other than
that of separation when the time comes
           though I remember praying
that it would never come
           and that no dust would ever settle
between us and that no spring
           would ever fail

John Lyons