{poem + story} tiny plutonian moon.

warm water in cast
iron teapot,

is soft
intimate, sensate

like lover’s silk

black, as night
quiet

where stars kiss 
on my inner sleeve, unspoken
promises and vows are kept forever
in the wombed room

and i am only his

tiny plutonian moon

with the familiar weight of his love
on my skin

A little more:

I think that if you’ve ever been in a long-distance relationship, where oceans separated you, you’d know the distance portrayed in this poem. And yet the water isn’t cold in the teapot. At least not yet.  

Love is such a silent giant thing. If you’ve read my first poetry book “Moonhold” you know that this is a phrase from its first poem. And I suppose we can see the scale of this here, like the vastness of space. And when love holds us, it becomes our reason, our meaning, our purpose. It becomes our gravity.

In the wombed room all begins, all is possible, as it is not yet out, born with lips to be kissed and to be spoken, hands to be held. There is both a distance and a closeness; a closeness in a way only we ourselves can understand because it is within us. A part of us. It is *of* us. And there is warmth. And there is intimacy. And so much heart, heart beating into life, a pulse, a hope, a dream of the so-close yet not yet.    

And what is colour? Is it just the colour itself, the essence of something – or how it changes related to and experiences itself through all else surrounding it? Is it blue water or just water in a blue cup? Is black a beginning or an end – is it the place in the universe where all else begins, a place of pure potentiality? Or is it the place where perhaps it’s time to shift our eyes, to listen to our heart, our inner voice whispering us into a new direction even if we can’t see the path yet? 

Where does water actually begin? Is it when we turn on the faucet or when we accidently dig in the ground and a fresh new spring surfaces? And then it’s as if we’ve opened the desert. Where does love actually begin? Philosophers say we rarely know when it begins – but we certainly know it has begun. 

The beautiful artwork is by Georgia O’Keeffe. I saw her paintings many years ago, though I loved them for long before then. Actually, it was during the same exhibit when I saw Van Gogh’s “Starry Night Over the Rhône” and fell completely and entirely, wholebodily and wholeheartedly, in love with it. It was his painting that then inspired me to write The Art of Loving (which I originally wrote on Medium one late starry night, and seven months later it was published by Thought Catalog), and then, two years later, to create my publication Art of Love. In many ways, it was the beginning – or rather – it was when it had already begun. Time itself is a subtle thing. Ops, but I digress. 

One of the things that I’ve always loved about O’Keeffe was her dedication to the small things – to the exploration of the big within the small. So she painted flowers. She painted very, very big flowers. And the more people wondered about them, and even called them vaginas, the more she kept painting them, even bigger. She wanted people to actually *see*. She wanted them to pause, to stop, and to look at the flowers – at the thing they walk by every day yet rarely notice. To learn to truly notice the extraordinary in the ordinary. Change your perspective and you’ll discover new worlds. New worlds will be born. New loves. New reasons. New dreams. 

Things take time. They really do. But all matters. And there is much to discover in the details. And in each other. Little twists and curves, grand gestures in subtle movements, the richness of nuances. And when we spend time with something, when we pay attention to it, this is when we treasure it, appreciate it, love it. And the tiny becomes not so tiny anymore. Love is such a silent giant thing. 

A note on the magic in the writer’s craft:

Sometimes writing is sensual, engaging all of your senses, experiencing itself through you, and you – through it. Other times, it is immediate, unexpected, almost ambitious, pouring out of you like a bold, confident river. And yet other times – it is almost non-existent. Blank page, followed by another blank page, just turning blank pages, a kind of writing that’s taking its sweet time. Days go by, weeks go by. There is a lot of staring involved. One phrase comes to excite us, only to then pause again. A kind of writing that indulges itself in the art of doing nothing. Well, there is no right or wrong, no better or worse. All these are actually magical, and all are gifts.

What makes it magical belongs to the realm of grace. Talent is part of it, certainly. Skill and dedication, absolutely. Thorough understanding of the secret laws, the cycles of the land and the timing of our life, yes, yes, yes. But – finding the harmony within our deepest nature through which we can then bond in unison, and dance together in love, shaping feelings and emotions into the bordered worlds of words – now that’s magic. It may be immediate, it may be sensual, it may be forceful, it may drag on and on, but it is the harmony, the love, the essence, all found along the landscapes of grace, where we stumble upon magic. That sort of serendipity comes upon us and wraps our entire body as if in a beautiful dream. It is a lucky day. It may come out of defeat, struggle, failure, boredom, sleep, romance, deep intimacy, deep love, deep passion. You may stumble upon it without even realizing what it is yet. And then it might become a lifelong song – a song that your whole life will sing ever after. We should always be humble. We should always be ready and open. Creativity like dedication, is a kind of prayer. An openness, an allowance, a readiness to go beyond the borders of our mind, and fall into the unknown magical lands. It is the learning of desire. Holding this desire in your hands, and yet unmarrying it from the hunger to be held, to be wanted, to be even called. 

If there are days when you feel like there’s nothing to write – that’s okay. No need to panic or even wonder why. There is wild land inside of us – an inner land, forever mysterious and forever obscured, where magic always, always, always happens. It drinks from deep waters. It warms itself from deep heat in the underground. So sometimes it is quiet. It has stillness, but it also has dance and radiance and glow. It has everything. So trust in your creative flow. 

Cover art: Georgia O`Keeffe Purple Petunias, 1925.