Two poems on longing

I was reading a lot of Rumi while I wrote the final few poems for my 2023 collection, Open Things, and I was fascinated by the way the Persian poets use imagery and metaphor. It’s denser than in Western poetry—they don’t so much say, “wine represents God and being drunk represents love of God,” as they show it, vivid descriptions of drinking with hardly any mention of God, because the symbolism is understood. I love the idea of creating an entire language just for poetry, which the reader and the poet both speak. I’ve tried to infuse some of that metaphor throughout Open Things — “faith is the bread, here, but doubt is the wine,”—“the birds outside my window…know nothing of metal fear and conditional love” — and, in the following poem, using the garden as a symbol of love, and pacing through it as a symbol of unrequited love. (It’s about an old relationship, don’t worry!) In the second poem, heft, pacing also represents carrying the weight of longing.

it was night in the garden  

i used to pace the path through the garden
between your house and mine
like a panther in a zoo  

it was night, and you hadn’t invited me over
it was night, and i wondered why—
it was always night in those days

and i was always wondering, pacing
trying to outpace your cruelty
trying to earn your love  

the path through the garden
was dusty with my tread  

the path through the garden
was worn into a trench

into which I still flow
like water always flows
to the easiest
lowest place

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heft  

i keep counting
my blessings, i do, but they drift
away like dandelion seeds  

the things i lack
are so much heavier  

their absence thuds
through my house
trailing my own painful steps  

“joy” i try again
“peace” i speak
“gratitude”  

but the words have no heft
to lift away my want

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