Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Wild Woman On Love

[Love Cats from p4poetry.com]

for Poets United's Thursday Think Tank prompt: Love

When I was young,
I dreamed Love
was out there
somewhere
just waiting for me,
and one day
it would find me.

When I was young,
I was tame.
I had been
trained
to stay within
safe confines,
trained to dream
standard
Technicolor dreams,
of boundaries
surrounded by
white picket fences.
Trained not to think
for one moment
that life could be
an adventure,
could be More,
could be
wild and free.

Marriage,
babies,
divorce,
single motherhood,
all hard work,
too exhausted
to do much more
than survive,
and yet,
somehow,
I did.

Love had been
a disappointment.
I did not find The One.

But I began to realize
you can't find
the love you need
Out There,
only within.
Instead of
looking for
The One,
I had to learn
the harder task,
of learning to value
and have compassion
for The Self.
Instead of looking
for the person
who would complete
my life,
I needed
to be that person,
and complete it
for myself.

It was a hard lesson,
accompanied by
tears,
but it was the lesson
I was meant to learn
this lifetime:
how to go it alone.

In time,
I began
to dream
a very wild
dream.
It involved
the universe,
and trust,
and one gigantic leap
out of my comfort zone
and into the
life of my dreams.

Wild Woman came alive
with an excited howl,
finally freed from
her fetters,
and we plunged into
frizzy-haired
wolf-howl
West Coast
living,
liberation,
life without limits,
where Different
was welcomed
and normal,
where life was
as big or as small
as you wanted
to make it.

In time,
I had to leave
that place.
But I brought
Wild Woman
with me
when I left.
She was rather quiet,
and tired,
bone-weary
from the long fatigue
of living.
Every now and then
she rattles my bones and
gives a long howl
to let me know
she is still in there,
still up for
another adventure,
for newness,
for dreams
with no limits.

We are still in love
with the land,
with the wind,
with the tall and  
toppling trees,
with night skies
and morning dew
and the smell of earth
stirring
in springtime.

Love? It never was
what I had been taught.
It never did come in
as a gift
from someone else
in the way
I had expected.
Instead, it goes out,
constantly,
from within
to all that
surrounds me:
babies, old people,
dogs, horses,
the sky,
forest trails,
the sea,
eagles and herons,
humanity itself,
transcendental heroes.
Love is in the living.
Love has never been
in the receiving,
nearly as much as
it is in 
the giving.

14 comments:

  1. Sheer, utter wisdom and brilliance! You have learned so much during this sojourn, Sherry. As I read this lesson on living, I realized that the reason I so LOVE The Good Husband is simple: He lets me be whatever me I want to be, and that has evolved over the years. I've not been pigeon-holed by him or myself. That has enabled me to love freely, the way describe for yourself. There are so many in need of love, and the more I give, the more there is to give.
    Blessings, Wild, Wise Woman!

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  2. I so enjoy your Wild Woman poems, Sherry, and this one is nothing less than brilliant! The last six lines are gems of wisdom, hard earned by you, but well learned.

    Love is one of the few sustainable resources we know we will never run out of...:)

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  3. Babies and old people??? Forget that noise, I want LUVVVVVVVV.

    Er...maybe I need to read it again.

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  4. PS--I had meant to say that I love the kitty cats in the picture. :-)

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  5. We must be happy with ourselves first or else none of it will work. I love what you have written here, it makes so much sense, Sherry.

    Pamela

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  6. I love the Wild Woman and all she has learned through her trials and tribulations! The hardest love is to learn to love our selves! Powerful you are, your spirit and prose~xXx

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  7. Sherry, such brilliant wisdom! I learnt it too ... marriage, divorce, single parenthood and one just keeps searching for love, the one she learnt since childhood ... until one day she realizes that pure love is just within ..inside ... and she starts giving it out to everyone, and start recognizing love in every small gesture of this universe, in a baby's smile, in a bird's sudden call, in a butterfly's flutter, in a dog's innocence .....

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  8. Reading through the poem, Koko Sherry, I could not help but be drawn into the labyrinth of your simmering wisdom. The poem is like a treatise on matters of love which, in manner of speaking, should be some form of an instruction manual given to young girls in search of themselves and others in the voyage of love and life in general.

    This poem has the pulse of a throbbing heart and a breathing soul. Love it to bits.

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  9. Sherry,this one is really brilliant..I have commented on the ohter poem before reading this one....but now I am sure what i wrote earlier is true..you are full of love not that selfish kind of love...that comes from deep inside spontaneous...
    i love the whole poem ....but these lines are really special...

    "But I began to realize....
    I needed
    to be that person,
    and complete it
    for myself."

    These lines for me is like a ray of light to the truth..(for a person who is confused in the darkness of confusion )
    for what should be the expectation and what is that we are returning to the world)

    "Love is in the living.
    Love has never been
    in the receiving,
    nearly as much as
    it is in
    the giving."

    So wise words from your own experiance ...this really touched me...
    Thank you for sharing..

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  10. I really like that. Although I've been very lucky in love, I can definitely relate to your Wild Woman. In fact, I bet my husband would join me in saying I'm a Wild Woman at heart. :)

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  11. I love the way you've realised love. Love is only an extension of ourselves within ourselves for others. I like the 'wild woman' metaphor too.

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  12. http://lunawitch15.wordpress.com/poetry-month-clambake-lets-have-some-fun/

    join me?

    Luna

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  13. you have magical transformation in LOVE, from daring dreams, to marriage, kids, divorce, to disappoint, then to discover Self LOVE and the harmony with NATURE...

    Glad to see you at peace on LOVE in the end,

    colorful and dramatic tale.
    well crafted love story.

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  14. I so enjoyed reading your Wild Woman saga. It is filled with the wisdom and compassion of a lifetime. Thanks for sharing these thoughts and stories with us, Sherry.

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