The Way to Love, Like the Sea

There is no other way of loving but the way I love you:
Unreservedly, with loud voices, with laughing;
With arms flung wide to encompass the oceans
And then to circle back ‘round to touch together the fingers;
And thus to encircle the world
And every love and every laugh
And to hand it over in a spectacular upheaval
As an eternal gift to the beloved one.
It is the way of all loves, the way
Of a little girl flinging her arms ‘round the neck of a stranger
And saying is a voice as petit as her frame: “Ah!”, the way
Of a broken woman who flings her body ‘round another strange body
And cries out in passion she does not understand: “My love!”, the way
The dying lover buries her lover and flings her spindly arms ‘round the casket that closes him
And announces to his open grave: “My life, I love you!”
It is the way of the poets who express
But have not the words to do their expressing;
It is the way of a doctor or a lawyer forsakes their work
And lies down beside his woman
And sighs in a contentment that dislodges the day
Of every misery and unlovely disaster.
It is unutterable, and so I scream syllables to the silent surf;
It is uknowable, and so I close my eyes to my pounding veins;
It is untouchable, untasteable, nonsensical,
And so I fling my arms wide to it, swim in the sea of it,
Scream in the absurdity and in the fury.
It is the depths of peace, the love of loving you.
It is the look of longing in my eyes as I think of your large eyes,
Sparkling like sunrise over all the oceans
That I offer you, gathering them into my arms,
Encircled by my deep, by my sea, by my soft silent surf.
There is no other way of loving but the way I love you.