I always had a great longing for love.
Beyond family dinners, mother’s food, father’s stories,
grandma’s jokes and tears: beyond fields and barns,
the rolling prairie, moonlit walks among twisted oaks
and lithe cottonwoods whistling their songs,
oh, such longing overtook me!

I could fall in love with the arch of a foot,
a tender, articulate hand,
eyes so wise I couldn’t bear to look into them.
I could follow a man up a fire escape in the dark,
down an icy freeway in a blizzard, up a sacred mountain,
into the boiling sea or the back of a smoky car.

I could enter their labyrinthic stories,
all for the longing that flushed my cheeks,
an ache that made me thrash all night in restless dreams,
summoned by a passion for touch and caring words.
I longed for what brought me to the table hungry
after I’d eaten: for children, a fellow traveler, a friend.

Longing set me free from everything I’d been
and everything I imagined I could never be.
Longing turned me inside out,
and let me swim in wishes and hope.
Longing led me past what all humans face and fear:
death, disease, the loss of love.

I’m grateful for my longing.
It makes no rules, and never betrays me.
My longing cannot lie.

You can still hear my longing in my voice. Yes.
You can find me in this poem.
Listen, and you’ll be welcomed in.