The Secret

I.

Words once written
Are feelings forgotten
And only remembered in the reflected light of language.
Perhaps this is why we write
Of pangs of lust and loss, of transient emotion,
But rarely of simple pleasures and continued joy:
The skin is more sensitive than the heart.

Poetry flows easily
When feelings are best forgotten.
Perhaps this is why words of love are rare:
Writing to forget is easy, to remember is hard.

When we write of happiness, writing to remember,
We write not with the urgency
With which we make love,
But instead slowly and carefully,
In a search for perfection,
In a search for the secret.

We search for words which glow
With the same light and warmth
As the feelings that inspire them,
But somehow language seems inadequate:
"A picture holds us captive."

Perhaps the measure of a feeling
Is our inability to express it:
Perhaps the measure of a man
Is his ability to feel the inexpressible.

Perhaps all of language is a maze
Meant to conceal a simple secret:
The universal words of love.

II.

I search for the secret.
Perhaps, once in a thousand years,
A great poet can express the inexpressible.
Turning the pages of Neruda, Auden, Yeats:
I find much beauty, but no secret.

I search for the secret.
Writing page after page
Of words rougher than sandpaper,
Which in my dreams I smooth and shape
Into statues of your lovely body:
I find much beauty, but no secret.

I search for the secret.
I search your green eyes, your smile,
Search the curves of your body
As I hold you close,
I search the warmth of your heart and mine.
And at last I find...

I know the secret, have found the words--
I will whisper them softly
Into your ear.

I know the secret, have found the words--
I will write them in a language
Known only to you and me.

I will write them on your body with my lips;
I will write them in letters of fire.

I know the secret, have found the words--
The universal words of love.

- DBN

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