Touch me…
Saturday, April 25th, 2009I have a friend who is a deep thinker.
We have been friends for 28 years. It has been nine years since I saw him last (until four days ago) and our level of communication and understanding each other is as close and deep as if we had been continuously developing our relationship that whole time.
We share a level of communication as men that is unusual in many ways. Ours is a Spiritual connection as are all of my close friendships. But unlike many relationships I have with other men, he and I share a common knowing of artistic and philosophical depth and understanding that is unparalleled.
He is one of the few individuals in my life who really has a read on whom I am, who has such a deep intellectual and emotional connection with me that he always reads me correctly and over the course of my 28 year friendship, has never once given me bad advice.
When he told me that this was his favorite poem ever. I had to read it. After I read it, I had to share it. I am never surprised by my friend any longer – only continuously amazed. This is love to me.
See why he calls this his favorite poem ever…
Touch Me…
Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that’s late,
it is my song that’s flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it’s done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.
- Stanley Kunitz
Copyright (c) 1995
by Stanley Kunitz
Thank you my friend, you were right.
Michael Barrett
4/24/09
