Friday, February 15, 2008

Maya Stein, Poet

...She didn't think she could love more than this.
She had bought furniture, had made a thousand breakfasts,
had placed her fingertips on another's skin, memorizing each inch.
She had found new words to assign to things, had discovered
a metaphor for marigolds, for deer, for wind, for the purr of a car.

She didn't think she could love more than this.
But even mountains, in their ageless, intractable design,
manage a few centimeters each year, croaking a little movement
from their bones, as if they haven't quite finished telling their own story.

Her love is a mountain, pushing forward by degrees,
resolute in the certainty that there is still more ground to cover.
And even though she didn't think she could love more than this,
she has. And she will.


Maya Stein, extract from her love is a mountain (for e.)

4 comments:

furiousBall said...

beautiful prose, thank you for sharing

Anonymous said...

the nuances of love in all its permutations and expressions never cease to cause wonder

C. said...

Mmmm....that is exquisite and true. Just when we think we can't, don't have it in us...we find...we do, and can. And will...again and again. That was SO nice, what a pleasure.

Di Mackey said...

Oh, I must write about the fact I was asked to either pay $150 or take down a poem I had published here. I keep forgetting but as there were 3 of us publishing it, I'm left wondering if the poet asked us all to remove it.

Maya, on the other hand, is so lovely about us wanting to put her work out in the world and share it with friends.